100 Years
by AssaultSloth
Summary: Locked away in the bowels of New Ozai, former king Bumi reminisces on a century of living. Experience the Mad Genius’ turbulent childhood in a world gripped by war.
1. Prologue

Prologue: 100 Years 

Present day (Bumi age 113), late spring.

--

A series of clangs echoed through the impromptu prison.

"Knock knock!" Bumi challenged again, eliciting no response from his nearby guards except for a discernable grinding of the teeth. The soldier closest to his cell was trying to look unconcerned, reclining against a bronze statue of a hyenavark with a few pieces of parchment in his hands, but Bumi knew he was about to break.

The ex-monarch of ex-Omashu drummed his forehead against the steel bars of his cage again.

"Knock knock!" he crowed. The reclining guard threw his reading material down in fury.

"WHO'S THERE?" Bumi let the silence ripen for a moment.

"Well… me, of course," he responded as if it were terribly obvious from the start. The guard did not find it particularly funny, or else he was very good at concealing his merriment. Bumi was undeterred.

"Hmm… I guess that one wasn't too good, but how about this one? What has two horns, two-"

"For Agni's sake, Bumi, shut the hell up" the guard interrupted. Bumi cackled.

"On a first name basis now, are we Khzai?" Though he couldn't see the younger man from his thoroughly-incarcerated position, Bumi knew Khzai had frozen in surprise at the old king's intuition. Bumi cackled again. As expected, _somebody _in this jail was growing desperate and hopeless. As for whom, however, that was an entirely different matter. If they thought they could outwait King Bumi, they were fools beyond fools.

Another awkward silence hung over the cavernous stone warehouse, deep beneath the busy streets of New Ozai, where Bumi was kept under watch. Only when he heard the almost imperceptible sigh of relief from Khzai did he let the silence end.

"What has two horns, two tusks, and gray skin?" Bumi began again. "Elephino!" He smiled and tried to crane his neck to grin at the guards, but was held back by his uncomfortable body casing and the heavy chains that bound it to the outer cell. He did, however, hear a chorus of groans (some of them concealing approval) from the Fire Nation troops.

"Get it?" he asked, good-naturedly. "It's like a rhinophant, but backwards!" He let out a long, crazy stream of chortling that thundered off of the stone walls with such might that it seemed the whole spirit world was joining him in laughter. The guards were unnerved and did nothing until Khzai stomped up to Bumi's cage and closed the single window, plunging the king into silent darkness.

Bumi heard the sound of two great bolts being latched over the only air hole in the steel box surrounding his coffin-like restraints. An ordinary person would probably suffocate in a situation like this, but Bumi was not worried. Every day since he had been captured Bumi had sufficiently angered his guards to cut off his air. It was something of a game to him, for when they opened it up again in an hour or so, expecting asphyxiation to have humbled the great monarch into behaving himself, he would be as healthy and annoying as ever. Each time he'd start right off with "So… you've come crawlin' back to hear more of my jokes, eh?" They had strict orders not to kill him, but Bumi wondered how many times he could say it before Khzai would snap.

For the time being, though, there was little point in telling jokes. The cell was quite soundproof; Bumi was sure of that. It was a war of the minds that Bumi had no plan to lose, but now was a time for both sides to think, rest, and prepare themselves for the next round. Bumi was a mighty, stubborn person, but even he had his limits.

Bumi's shaggy head slumped down to rest on the wickedly cold steel under his chin. The pain of the past few weeks came crashing down on him.

He had not shed a tear, not released the tiniest 'oof' of discomfort when the Fire Nation had cuffed him, ripped his expensive outer robes from his body, and beaten him savagely. It must have been quite a sight to onlookers. He could have torn the three men to pieces, earthbending or not, but he allowed them to bind his limbs and drag him through the triumphant Fire Nation army, amongst many a kick from booted feet and the wicked, jeering roar of thousands of men, drunk with victory and Omashu-brewed alcohol. He was silent and stony even as the governor that would be replacing him set a whip against his back in front of his people. Their responses were the most painful of his tortures, a mixture of great sorrow and great anger for the king who, in their mind, had failed them all. None yet knew what Bumi had done for them.

The Fire Nation thought he had given up. His own soldiers believed the same (really, he was a little irked that they hadn't learned, in all their years serving him, that he did things for a reason). The world of man had so quickly decided that he was no longer a factor in this war, and had directed their efforts elsewhere. Oh how wrong they were. He would sit in this jail for as long as it would take, and when that time came, they would grovel at his feet and bemoan their foolishness. As long as the world thought him powerless, Bumi had more power than they could possibly imagine.

Powerless or not, however, Bumi was not going to kowtow to his oppressors. Let them think him weak, broken, senile all they wanted, but Bumi would not give them the pleasure of seeing him brought low. If he was lucky, Khzai might survive this war, might one day sit amongst the company of his family, in peace. But when his grandchildren asked him how he had defeated the legendary Bumi, Khzai would have to lie. The world might never know, but Khzai would know, and Bumi would know.

But now, hidden in the silent darkness of his new home, Bumi could risk showing weakness. His body was sore and cramped within the confines of his coffin-like cage. Bumi smirked at the imagery. The Fire Nation had always been so very dramatic, but it was wishful thinking on their part if they thought they were putting Bumi into the grave any time soon. He had lived for 113 years and he fully planned on living for as long as he saw fit.

He owed his great longevity not only to his mind but also to his mastery of earthbending. With concentration, he could slow his metabolism to a mere fraction of that of a regular man. He did so now, feeling his body grow as still and immovable as the rock he commanded. His heart beat once. He felt the pain of his injuries, the discomfort of the heavy chains that bound his wrists together, the crick in his back from having not moved in days, his great hunger and thirst (having last eaten yesterday morning), his shortness of breath, and all other feelings grind to a halt.

His heart beat again.

This was truly the secret to his long life. In a state such as this, he could last for weeks without food or water. He didn't know anymore how long he had been cooped up in this position, but it didn't matter. He could meditate until his guards outside were dead and gone and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to his age or health.

No, in this state, time was nothing. The war was nothing. In this state, Bumi and the Earth were one and the same. In this state, Bumi could best feel the Earth's own heartbeat, and it matched his own. In this state, he could understand the Earth's wisdom and Her own immunity to time and the concerns of mankind. When fully awake, Bumi had to deal with the crushing possibility that his plans might not work, that all of this death and destruction had been for nothing, but when he slowed himself down and communed with the Earth, every fiber of his being told him that this was the right path, that he and the Earth were together as they should be. Bumi would be patient, would endure this indignity for now, for in the end he would be victorious.

The Earth's voice soothed Bumi's troubled mind. Strategizing was difficult in his state of suspense, and the great tapestry of plans and decisions that usually swarmed about his head slipped away into nothingness. _There is a time and a place for thinking_, the Earth reminded him, _but there is a time and a place also for choosing not to think._ Bumi mentally nodded at the wisdom of the Earth's words. He had thought it all through; there was nothing left to be gained by planning. All that remained now was the waiting. Eventually the moment would come, and when it did, he would be ready.

For now, he would be content with thoughts of less import. His mind slipped back to his youth, to the time he had spent with that most important of persons, the Avatar. The games they had played, the things they had learned, the world before the war. Few now remembered it. Few could take solace in its quietude.

Bumi's mind wandered to Omashu as it had been a full century earlier, back to the adventurous childhood he had spent amongst its every level. He had barely begun when the sound of bolts unlocking snapped him out of his reverie. His heartbeat returned to its normal pace and he plastered a goofy grin on his face.

The door slid open.

"So… you've come crawlin' back to hear more of my jokes, eh?"

The door slammed shut.

Bumi let out a satisfied chuckle and returned to his reminiscing.


	2. I: Bumi and the Trio of Valor

**Episode I: Bumi and the Trio of Valor**

101 years ago (Bumi age 12), winter.

--

Sir Gregory Otto Haphaeos the Third, detective and secret agent extraordinaire under the employ of the Earth King, tiptoed softly through the hallway. Sweat dripped from his brow, not from fear of danger (though danger was all around him) but from sheer exertion. He had tracked Lord Magignos and his minions all the way around the world already today, and his hands ached from punching all of those shark-kudas into oblivion. It had been a fierce battle, fraught with argument and anger, but in the end it was decided that Sir Gregory was just very good at dodging, but that the shark-kudas had merely been injured and would return to fight another day.

Frankly, Sir Gregory _still_ thought that nobody could survive a punch that hard, but he had been overruled. The hunt must go on. All distractions must be eliminated. As the secret agent made his way through Magignos' massive stone fortress he became more and more aware that every step he took could be his last.

A great battle cry echoed from his left and Sir Gregory had only the briefest moment to leap from the path of his attacker, who barreled past before realizing his mistake and turning to face him.

"So, the Zookeeper… we meet at last" he challenged.

"Sir Gregory Otto Hay…" the Zookeeper started with some difficulty.

"Haphaeos the Third," Sir Gregory finished.

"Right, right. What you said. We meet again!" The Zookeeper brandished his magical staff, which, Sir Gregory knew, could control any animal in the world (except for those already controlled by Lord Magignos, of course, that was only fair).

"Don't think I've forgotten how you abandoned my air bison back at the volcano, Gregory…" the Zookeeper prompted, still tensed for battle.

"I told you already, I'm innocent! Appa was put under a sleeping spell by Lord Magignos! I had nothing to do with it! In fact, we should join forces!" The Zookeeper seemed to consider his words for a moment, but all too soon a scowl worked its way across his tattooed face.

"It's too late for that, Sir Gregory!" he shouted, jabbing his staff forward threateningly.

"It is too late…" a silken voice interrupted from the right. "For you!" The two combatants looked to the side just in time to see Lord Magignos, magical warlord from space, his face occluded by the twin fireballs bursting from his hands.

"NOOOO!!!" Sir Gregory shouted as the first blast of flame struck the ground in front of the Zookeeper, sending his potential ally rocketing thirty feet into the air. The Zookeeper ended up sprawled on the floor, tongue hanging out and eyes closed in the very picture of exaggerated melodrama. In his horror, Sir Gregory was unprepared for the second blast, and it connected quite forcefully, sending him rolling across the floor to stop at the base of a column.

As Sir Gregory hacked and wheezed, broken on the ground, a shadow fell over him. He looked up fearfully to see the inky black silhouette of Lord Magignos, a tauntingly smug grin on his dour face.

"And now, Sir Gregory Otto…Umm…"

"Haphaeos the Third" Sir Gregory finished helpfully.

"Right, right. Now you shall die…" A ball of fire appeared in Magignos' fist, which he raised up, ready to land the killing blow. Sir Gregory smiled. He had to time this just right…

"I… think… not!" Sir Gregory shouted at the last moment, rolling to the side. Magignos overcompensated and was unbalanced at the very moment a huge stone cart thundered down the nearby stone chute on its rapid descent to Omashu's lower level. The massive air current sent Magignos tumbling into the ground.

All three of them broke into peals of boyish laughter. Bumi could hardly contain his amusement at the sight of Kuzon's ignoble position, and tried several times to rise, all in vain. Aang managed to hobble over from where he had 'died' and helped Kuzon to his feet.

"Sir Gregory Otto Haphaeos the Third is victorious again!" Bumi announced as he finally picked himself up from the stony floor. Kuzon punched him playfully in the shoulder.

"Would it kill you to let someone else win once in a while?" Bumi put on a face of mock horror.

"Sir Gregory would _never_ submit to the forces of evil! Good must prevail! Or at least he who knows the mail schedule must prevail!" Bumi grinned tauntingly at his two best friends.

"Vanquished by the postage system… how embarrassing…" Kuzon retorted, brushing the dirt out of his black hair. The three of them, an unspoken truce established, walked back out to the balcony on which they had been playing earlier this morning.

"Not as embarrassing as being able to control animals but _not having any animals to control!_" Aang whined, looking to Appa. Appa, having awakened from the 'sleeping spell' Magignos had cast on him during the epic Battle of the Volcano merely looked up from his meal of hay and lowed in response. Aang laughed and vaulted himself onto his mammoth furry friend.

Bumi, still out of breath, flopped down on the stone floor in the great beast's shadow, taking shelter from the vicious sunlight. Kuzon didn't seem to mind it, however, and seated himself on one of the balcony's benches, still preoccupied with brushing the dirt off of his expensive red garments.

They rested like that for some minutes with only the rhythmic sound of three heaving pairs of lungs, taxed to the extreme.

"So… what now?" Aang asked when he had finally calmed down. Bumi jumped to his feet.

"Let us enact another thrilling battle! I shall be Captain Omstrom Zanzibar Bizzorzix Furdo-"

"How about just Captain Omstrom?" Kuzon asked, rolling his golden eyes in exasperation.

"Yeah," Aang agreed from his perch atop Appa's head. "Besides, Bizzorzix isn't even a name."

"Sure it is! I knew a guy named Bizzorzix," Bumi lied.

"Nu uh" Kuzon rebutted.

--

The three of them argued back and forth like this for some time. As usual, the self-named 'Trio of Valor' managed slightly more arguing than actual playing during these visits. It probably shouldn't be so surprising, however. They were young boys and thus argumentative by nature, but furthermore came from widely different worlds. Even in times of peace, one could not reasonably expect an airbending monk prodigy, raised free of worldly concerns, an earthbending scribe-in-training, raised by merchants and bureaucrats, and the firebending son of a powerful governor, raised in the grandeur and political complexity of royal life, to agree about very many things. Each of the three was talented in his own right, and each had much to learn from the others.

This was precisely the point, of course. Aang's mentors felt (for reasons which would eventually become clear to Bumi, but had no meaning to him now) that the monk needed to see more than just his own people, to gain an understanding of cultures outside of his own. It just so happened that Kuzon's father maintained many business connections in Omashu and would often bring his son with him when he came to check on matters here. Bumi himself was only included because he was an available Earth Kingdom boy of the right age and with too much free time on his hands. Regardless of reason, however, the three managed to meet once per year, if not more.

It was a powerful experience for all three of them. Aang was an inspirationally optimistic person and a naturally talented bender, but for all his boundless enthusiasm he lacked any particular insight into the world. Kuzon was stodgy and elitist, as expected by his people, but intelligent and well versed in many things, a product of his formal education. Finally, Bumi was clever and sardonic, with more brains than he could possibly use in his mindless day-to-day routine, and benefited from spending time with people that were not 'completely below him' (his words).

The three of them would spend a day or so together each time, sometimes actively teaching one another (though they would never openly admit it, Kuzon and Bumi were inordinately jealous of Aang's bending prowess) but usually just getting into all manner of harmless mischief.

--

"I still think it's a good name" Bumi pouted, defeated, as he clambered atop Appa's flank to rest in the bison's fur. While Aang and Kuzon decided on their own characters, he peered down the colossal sloped sides of Omashu. Its intricate weave of roads, buildings, and stone chutes glowed like gold in the sunlight. From up this high (just a few stories short of the palace itself, in fact) people down in the slums and flea markets at Omashu's lowest level looked like a mere swarm of ants, hustling about their day-to-day activities, happy and oblivious.

Suddenly, Bumi's sharp eyes caught something of rather more interest. A few levels below him, an ostrich-horse tore its way up the winding street in a considerable hurry. The rider, dressed in the uniform of the Earth Army, howled out warnings but nonetheless paid little heed to those people who could not get out of his way in time. This man was a scout, Bumi decided, a scout with something very important to say to the King of Omashu. And Bumi had to hear it.

Without a beat of hesitation nor word of warning, Bumi slid his way off of Appa's back and took off down the hallway. His two friends stopped their arguing and glanced after him, confused.

"Come on!" Bumi shouted from up ahead.

Despite his head start, Kuzon and Aang caught up with little difficulty. Neither of them asked him as to why he was running, but merely followed his lead, sprinting down the long stone corridors.

Bumi had lived in Omashu (and indeed in and around the palace) for most of his short life, and he knew it very well. He turned corners and changed directions with rehearsed precision, leading his friends deeper and deeper within the great labyrinth that was the city. They ascended narrow staircases, worked their way through darkened allies, and wove through routes that only a select few knew. Omashu was an ancient city, filled with secrets. Bumi led them now to one of his favorite finds, a secret passageway that led directly to the king's throne room. Whether it was designed for the king's escape in times of need or for something more nefarious, the boy did not know. Either way, it was rarely used and offered the perfect opportunity for inquisitive young minds to eavesdrop on royals.

Earthbending his way through one of the secret entrances, Bumi finally slowed his pace to a crawl. As he closed the path behind them, they were plunged into complete darkness. None of them spoke. They felt their way to the end of the narrow corridor and Bumi struck both of his hands against the ceiling. It gave way easily and he lifted it up just high enough to peek through its edges. He carefully peered in all directions, taking care not to be too conspicuous. Aang and Kuzon crowded up beside him, anxious to see what was so important.

The throne room was quiet and imposing, as always. The great green lights that illuminated much of Omashu's interior were mightiest in here, and gave the entire cavernous room a crystalline appearance. From beneath the trick floor tile, the Trio of Valor could see the King's throne, an opulent rock carving trimmed in green and gold, and the robust monarch that graced its surface. King Ouxi the First was swaddled in expensive garments in various shades of green. Jewelry of all sorts hung from his frame and a golden crown that seemed just a little too small for him sat atop his head. The man was short but imposing, and radiated power from every pore. At the moment, though, he was unoccupied, merely resting in his great chair, all alone in the magnificent hall.

"What are we doing here?" Kuzon complained after a minute.

"Shut up" Bumi commanded, earthbending a stone into Kuzon's toes. Except for a yelp of pain and a brief retaliatory punch, the trio watched silently for a minute or so.

Suddenly, the doors opened with a mighty boom, and in walked the scout Bumi had seen, flanked on all four sides by ornamental guards.

"Your Highness!" he grunted between huge gulps of air.

If the king was unnerved by the man's obvious state of distress, he didn't show it. His ringed hand gestured with a lazy disinterest, bidding the scout deliver his missive.

"Your Highness, news from Unkuo" the man said, still breathless.

"Go on."

"A trade ship, the… ahh…" the man unfurled and scanned through the scroll in his hands "the _Munificent_ did not return from its most recent journey to the Fire Nation. We figured it had just been delayed or caught in a storm, but a survivor washed up near Unkuo two days ago, claiming the ship had been fired upon in Fire Nation waters."

To the king's credit, he took notice now. It was common knowledge that the Fire Nation was getting more and more aggressive in recent years, refusing to participate in many four nations summits and cutting off all visitation to their lands. The trade agreements were all but spent and hostilities were rising on all sides, but a direct act of war seemed hard to fathom.

"Attacked by the Fire Nation?" he asked skeptically.

"Supposedly so, sir."

"What has the Fire Nation said about this?"

"Nothing yet. We sent message to them, but they had not returned a response when I set off yesterday morning. No doubt you will get word of it as soon as possible." The king nodded solemnly.

"What would you have me do, Sire?" The king rested a chin in one of his hammy fists, stroking his dignified beard as he thought.

"I shall have several messages penned, which you are to deliver to the Unkuo region at first light tomorrow morning. My guards will show you to your room." He sent the winded and visibly shaken scout on his way even as he hefted his stocky body from the throne and headed towards his personal chambers. Bumi had to hurriedly lower the tile back into place to avoid detection as the monarch lumbered by.

--

All was quiet in their secret tunnel as the three friends attempted to reconcile what they had just heard. After a bit, they steadily made their way back to the balcony with none of the haste that had possessed them on their way up. Even once they reached Appa they flopped down in his shadow and remained quiet, each absorbed in his own thoughts, for some minutes.

"It's probably a mistake," Aang suggested at length. Kuzon and Bumi shared the briefest of doubtful glances. Bumi could tell Kuzon was just as unnerved as Aang was, but could not bring himself to speak against his own country.

"Probably" Bumi agreed, if only to comfort his friends. "But mistake or not, it means it is time for the Trio of Valor to adjourn." The airbending monks who had escorted Aang would no doubt hear the news at any moment and be anxious to report it to their own people. Bumi extended a fist, clenched in the hand symbol for Earth. His friends nodded and extended their own hands to rest against his, each forming their own elemental symbol.

Their gesture had been invented at the Trio of Valor's inception, and, as per the rules of the club, was all the goodbye that was necessary. In that symbol alone, they promised allegiance and friendship until the end of the world, and beyond.

It required no further words, then, when Bumi's prediction turned out to be correct and two elderly, tattooed men, swathed in orange cloth, came to usher Aang back to their temple. Appa seemed to immediately intuit that something significant had happened, and stood, ready for flight. The three airbenders leapt into his massive saddle and, with a confident 'Yip Yip' from Aang, they were off.

Little did Bumi know that it was the last time he'd see his friend, or any airbender for that matter, for over one hundred years…

Their shade denied, Bumi and Kuzon merely stretched out in the sun, their bodies relaxed in the sun's warming glow but their minds busy with trouble.

"You do not really think it was a mistake, do you?" Kuzon challenged after a time.

"Of course not" Bumi answered. "But I wasn't going to say that around Aang."

There was another silence.

"So what will happen, Mad Genius?" Kuzon asked again.

"Oh, they'll probably fight it out on the market, bunch of merchants will lose a bunch of money, Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation will embargo each others' goods, and the Water Tribes will take all the punishment." Kuzon was visibly relieved.

"You know Kooz, when _I'm_ king, I'm gonna put a stop to this sort of thing." Kuzon rolled his eyes.

"Pfft. You cannot just _become_ king, Bumi. It is already decided. You have even less chance than I do. Sir Gregory Otto Haphaeos the Third just has to accept that he is not, in fact, anything more than a figment of some goofy kid's imagination." Friendly sarcasm dripped from Kuzon's eloquent voice. The two of them laughed.

"We'll see, Kooz, we'll see."

--

Hours later, as Bumi stared into the ceiling of the small room he had been assigned when he first came to Omashu, trying to get to sleep, the day's events replayed endlessly through his head.

If there was a good thing about being a scribe-in-training (and Bumi was not entirely sure there was one), it was the unique opportunity to learn some very interesting things. After Kuzon had left with his father, Bumi had eaten a meal of salted meat and bread and then worked with the other scribes for a few hours, as he did every evening. His hands were calloused and tough, not from heavy lifting, but from so many, many long nights of writing. He would sit in a hot, stuffy room, huddled over a desk with perhaps a dozen other people, transcribing the messy, simplistic scraps and notes assigned to him into presentable letters. It was exhausting work and for most assignments any mistake would require starting the entire thing over (Gods forbid that anyone suspect the noblemen couldn't write intelligently to save their lives. That was for the scribes to know and never tell). Worse yet, each scribe was assigned exactly as much writing as he could reasonably finish in a given session, providing he worked without error, so it was not at all uncommon that Bumi would be writing one, two, or even more hours past the scheduled stopping time.

It was boring, mind-numbing work, and Bumi didn't think he could ever forgive his parents for putting him through it. Youngest son of a moderately wealthy landowner with far too many children as it was, Bumi could never claim any of his father's inheritance and thus was sent off to Omashu to become a scribe. A _scribe_… He understood that it was traditional, but on some level it still insulted him. Bumi was destined for greatness. No, not destined. Bumi was capable of achieving greatness, and would do so. To be relegated to a task so unfit his abilities was deeply disturbing.

However awful it was, however, being a scribe _did_ offer some interesting information from time to time. Scribes were not technically supposed to read the material they were transcribing, unless they had to (such as when they were given only a few sketchy words to go on), but Bumi had a habit of absorbing every letter he penned. Being merely an apprentice of sorts, he rarely got anything interesting, usually just shopping lists from some noblemen or another or obligatory letters of congratulations. The bureaucracy sickened him.

However, the adult scribes at the big desks on the end of the room often had _very_ interesting things to transcribe. It was a simple matter to wait until they left their desk (indeed, Bumi intentionally caused some form of distraction almost every night) and switch a pile of boring assignments for their pile of interesting assignments. It was in this manner (after having discreetly caused a massive ink spill that required both of the adult scribes' attention) that Bumi himself penned the King's responses to the recent crisis with the missing boat.

"_The Fire Nation has gone too far. I want every garrison within ten leagues on full duty."_

"_This was no mistake. The Munificent was carrying silk. I thought we had dealt with the silk disputes weeks ago. Fix it."_

"_We must expedite construction. The Western base will help us maintain our defenses, but not if it isn't complete in time. If Sozin wants a battle, he will find one waiting for him in the Earth Kingdom. Call for workers from the nearby towns, by force if you have to."_

And so on, and so forth. It was all very juicy, and Bumi found himself not minding the extra time it took to write each one out. He found himself lost in the distinctive kingly scrawl, which, while messy, oozed monarchial might. Of course, the more he read, the less confident he felt about his earlier forecast to Kuzon. The king clearly knew more than what had been revealed to Bumi, and was clearly greatly troubled by this new development.

It was shortly after midnight when Bumi finally placed his neatly-bound and completed stack of letters on the main desk, delivered a curt nod to the annoyed scribe who had had to stay up to keep watch over him, and went to bed, clutching his right hand in discomfort.

He had a new respect for the king… that much was certain. Bumi found the idea of a massive conspiracy, with one supremely clever fellow at the center of it all, immediately enthralling. The deception and trickery didn't offend him, but only tantalized his adventurous mind. When he was king, he decreed, he would be the trickiest, smartest of them all, no matter what Kuzon said.

Bumi's last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep were ideas for what his kingly robes would look like.

--

A/N: There we go, the first two 'episodes' of my Bumi-centric piece. Since Bumi's life story would have to stretch over more than a century, I have decided that this story's timeframe will jump frequently, offering glimpses into particular moments in Bumi's life, rather than maintaining a constant narrative. Thus, I shall try to make each episode (which will usually be one chapter, but sometimes more) capable of standing alone.

That said, I hope you enjoy this story. I know there aren't too many Bumi fans out there, but I also know that they exist, so let me hear from you. Considering the time frame, there will be very little seen of any recognizable characters (even Iroh won't be born for some forty-odd years), so I've no great hopes for popularity with this tale.

Finally, I do not know if we'll ever get any more official information about Kuzon than we have already, so at some point this story may deviate from canon. Otherwise, however, I shall do what I can to keep it on the straight-and-narrow.

Thanks for reading, and please review. Said reviews bring me joy.


	3. II: Bumi versus the Advisor

Episode II: Bumi versus the Advisor 

100 years ago (Bumi age 13), late summer.

--

For the nth time that morning, Bumi's earth puppet rose shakily to its feet. Its stubby stone body was crudely formed at best, looking, at first glance, a mere pile of rocks. However, those who knew him could just make out the form of Head Scribe Antius, complete with his hunched back and omnipresent scowl, with the right amount of imagination. The likeness became unmistakable, however, when Bumi poked at the air, tugging the puppet through Antius' characteristic shuffle on invisible strings. It had taken Bumi many hours of practice to learn to hold the puppet together at all, and then many more to move the rocks in such a precise manner without sending them shooting across the room. He had stuck to it, however, and every morning the task came with less and less concentration. The delicacy and precision of his self-invented trick was very much contrary to brutish focus of what little formal earthbending training he had received, but appealed to him far more. Anybody could crush a man's ribcage with a rock, but thusfar only Bumi could crush a man's reputation and self esteem.

At present, earth-Antius set to patrolling about the room, griping over unimportant details, checking under the bed for stolen pens (they always searched Bumi first, for some reason, but he was a bit too clever to hide them someplace so mundane as under the bed), and any other activity Bumi could mime to mock in effigy the sour, unfriendly man charged with his care. It was a cruel sort of irony, really. Bumi had long ago decided that Antius attempted to exercise a criminally great standard of control over him and the other scribes, but now here he was, dangling from Bumi's fingers, obeying Bumi's will.

Just as he narrated a whiny lecture over proper study habits in the most unflatteringly screechy voice he could muster, however, the inspiration for his little pet shuffled into the room. In a flash, Bumi released his control over the puppet, allowing it to clatter to the ground as he attempted to get into a believable 'getting-ready-for-school' position. He met real-Antius' gaze.

"Sir?" he asked innocently. Antius eyed him with disapproval, not at all attempting to hide his distaste for Bumi and his constant antics.

"You are supposed to be getting ready for class, Bumi, not… err..." he waved his bony hands at the still pile of rocks by the bedpost while he sought a sufficient word to describe Bumi's crime. "This. I will not answer for you if Master Jiang comes asking why you were late again. You have not forgotten your class reading period begins in ten minutes, have you?"

"I read it already, so I'm not going."

"All of it?" Antius asked in disbelief.

"Yes." Bumi withdrew the tightly wound scroll that had been his Earth Kingdom history assignment from his bag and handed it to Antius.

"You will be tested on it," the scribe warned. Antius seemed tempted to test him right then and there (which Bumi would not have minded in the least), but finally 'hmphed' and pulled a document from the depths of his right sleeve. "A letter for you," he admitted.

After a fraction of a second of pause (in which Bumi believed the letter had been one he had transcribed poorly, and thus would have to redo), Bumi snatched it from Antius' outstretched hand and rushed to his desk, messily tearing the envelope apart and pretending to forget the scribe's presence. Antius 'hmphed' again and shuffled from the room.

Bumi didn't have to look at the letter to know from whom it came. His parents would write him every once in a while to admonish he be dutiful in his studies, but they weren't scheduled for another message for at least another month (and his father was not known for his flexibility). Therefore, it had to be from Aang. Indeed, the parchment was lighter and more delicate than the oily stuff on which Earth Kingdom documents were usually written, an obvious giveaway to its origins. Bumi sat on his chair and read.

_Dear Bumi,_

_I know you probably don't want to see any more letters than you already do, but I had to tell you something. I am the Avatar. The monks have been training me much more than usual and I hardly have any time to play anymore. I do not think I will get to Omashu this year. I asked Gyatso and I know he likes to go to Omashu too, but he said maybe next year. Being the Avatar is hard work. I'm not sure I like it._

_Be sure to tease Kuzon about his hair for me._

_--Aang_

Bumi read and reread the note before crumpling it up and throwing it across the room. He rested his face on the surface of his desk and cursed his luck. The one thing, the one freakin' event he looked forward to every day, was being put off for a whole year. Those brainless, cruel monks. What could possibly be so important that they'd deny Bumi what little time he got to spend with one of his best friends?

There was an awkward pause inside of Bumi's head.

_Wait, that whole Avatar thing… right…_ Bumi very briefly chastised himself for his selfishness, but, never having been particularly introspective (he didn't see why he had to question his own motives… he had the whole world to do that for him), brushed it off and resolved to be at least realistic, if not mature, about the whole situation. Kuzon would still come, of course, and the two of them could have fun. It wouldn't be the same without Aang, but it would still be fun. They could even set up an elaborate trick and have it ready for when Aang came next year. Yes… Bumi's typical grin returned to his face as he imagined the possibilities. Aang would never see it coming.

_Still_, he thought, relapsing to his sulky disappointment. _Pfft… stupid Avatar. _It occurred to Bumi that he should have been more surprised at Aang's revelation, but somehow it didn't change Bumi's perspective of him at all. It wasn't surprising in the least. Roku had died twelve years ago, the Air Nomads were next in the cycle, and Aang had always held an uncommon power within his every action. It didn't matter, though. Aang was his friend and he would have waited for Aang. Now he would simply wait for the Avatar.

But he darn sure wasn't going to be quiet while he waited. No, he was going to whine and moan and pout and everything else that he wanted to do until he felt better, and nobody was going to stop him. While the other young scribes bustled through the hallways to get to the reading period, Bumi just imagined all manner of wicked tricks he could play on Antius as revenge for his lack of good fortune.

--

Despite his productive brainstorming session (which included several promising possibilities involving live waterfowl that he tucked away for later use), Bumi was still in a very poor mood when he finally headed off for class. His scrolls and supplies stuffed in the cloth satchel on his back, he walked slowly down the hallway, pausing to kick every column and buttress he passed.

Bumi kicked the classroom door open with suitable force to slam it against the wall and marched in with what he deemed sufficient pizzazz, ignoring the annoyed scowls of a dozen studious children, well-groomed and behaved in their little desks. He took his usual seat towards the back of class, tossed his bag unceremoniously on the ground, and immediately leaned back in his chair, busying himself staring at the pattern of cracks and bumps on the ceiling. Master Jiang, who sat quietly at the large desk at the front of the room, ignored the boy's usual attention-seeking demeanor.

"Psst… Bumi," whispered Lar, a timid boy to his right, his voice cracking with worry. "Where did Kyoshi Island get its name?"

"From a type of insect that lived there and nowhere else," Bumi responded perfunctorily.

"Thanks," Lar responded, his relief obvious. Bumi stifled a snicker. He could just imagine the look on Avatar Kyoshi's face at being described as an insect, but apparently he had made fun of the current Avatar before, so he didn't see why the old ones should be off limits. Besides, what he said was true if the insect was a painted lady mothfly, right? Hehe, sure, that worked. His conscience was clean.

Eventually, Master Jiang stood and rang the little metal bell he kept on his desk, signaling the end of the reading period. As per usual, the students put their history reading away and looked to him attentively.

"Good morning, Class."

"Good morning Master Jiang."

"As I mentioned last week, today we have a very special guest speaker. I presume you all have been coming up with questions to ask him?" Bumi was only half listening as he tired of looking at the ceiling and got to work on one of his other homework assignments. Bumi accomplished almost all of his schoolwork during school itself, and _still_ found time to be bored out of his skull.

"Our guest today is Advisor Kee, council leader and one of King Ouxi's royal viziers." A tall, royally bedecked man strode into the room. He wore a lengthy green cape and a thick suit that resembled the uniform of the Omashu Royal Guard. Bumi set down his pen and paid attention. He had been stewing with curiosity about the whole Fire Nation thing for months. What better way to get his questions answered than through one of the king's own advisors?

"Good morning, children," Advisor Kee greeted warmly as Master Jiang surrendered the floor.

"Good morning, sir" the class chimed, impressed by his official garb and mannerisms. Kee turned to the board, a solid slab of rock, and etched his name into it with his finger, writing very carefully and with many an ornate flourish. He stepped aside, allowing the class to copy the correct spelling into their notes.

"I believe you all have some questions for me about what it is I do," he prompted. Bumi's hand shot up. Advisor Kee smiled broadly, clearly pleased by such enthusiasm, but Bumi could not help notice Master Jiang's face falling.

"Yes, you there, in the back."

"Yes, I have a question," Bumi started, "Why didn't the Fire Nation allow search parties into their waters to look for the _Munificent_'s missing passengers? You'd think the threat of complete embargo would be significant enough to force them, so what's going on?" He put his hands in his lap and waited earnestly for an answer.

Advisor Kee blanched. All of his bravado evaporated in an instant.

"How… how did…" he stuttered before regaining his composure. "The Fire Nation has been our trusted ally for many years. It is not our place to question their policies, and I am certain any lost sailors they find will be returned safe and sound. Now, anyone else?" Bumi was disappointed with the canned response. Was Kee so stupid to believe the excrement he espoused? Bumi raised his hand again with more malevolent intent. If this fool was going to lie to them, he wasn't going to get away with it unexposed. The man called on a girl towards the front of the class.

"What does a royal vizier do?" she asked. Kee's smile returned; he was prepared to answer _this_ question. He pounded a fist on the board, earthbending it clean again, and traced his finger across its surface.

"Well, my job, as royal vizier, is to advise and help the king in all manner of issues, ranging from political…" he began, scrawling a list until Bumi interrupted him.

"Yeah right, like the King would need a bozo like _you_ to help him with anything" Bumi taunted. Kee whirled around, face red with anger.

"Young man, I don't know who you think you are, but in the Earth Kingdom, children respect their elders!" he said, taking two threatening strides towards Bumi.

"I'm Bumi, Jerkwad, and you'd do well not to slander my king!" Bumi roared back. Kee advanced, no doubt intending to beat his point into the rebellious youth, but Master Jiang got to him first, grabbing him roughly by the arm. If Kee looked angry, Jiang looked positively livid.

"My apologies, Advisor Kee. I will deal with it. Please, continue." He bowed over and over, begging forgiveness through gritted teeth as he dragged Bumi towards the door. Kee was again his jovial, friendly self in no time at all and returned to his unfinished list.

"Anyway…" he began anew, "including political, military, and economical issues." Bumi fought valiantly but futilely against Jiang, struggling to return to his seat, but all of the fight left him in an instant when Kee stepped aside again to let the class copy down his list. His handwriting… The king's handwriting… Those very distinctive, _kingly_ letters that Bumi had worshipped so carefully, had fought and failed to emulate in his own writing, they were identical. Bumi was dumfounded.

--

Stunned with confusion, he allowed Jiang to drag him out into the hallway with no further trouble, endured the teacher's furious lecture without his usual snide rebuttals and backtalk, and numbly promised to write a formal letter of apology to Kee. He was quiet as Jiang continued his tirade, launching into a second tangent of disapproval, then a third. He calmly acquiesced when Jiang penned a condemning note that he was to deliver to Antius, and he made no fuss at all when he was sentenced to sit outside and write, over and over, 'I will not insult guests of honor'. His stunned acceptance was so unlike Bumi that even despite his fury, Jiang (who was not so bad as Bumi sometimes made him out to be, and was actually rather intelligent himself) was becoming concerned for the boy's well being.

When he finally ran out of things to rage about and Bumi still hadn't moved, Jiang began to wonder if he might have been too harsh. He stood guiltily by Bumi's side, grappling with indecision. Bumi was a constant nuisance to him, but was still just a young boy without a real home anymore. He was simply too smart for his own good, and probably didn't deserve half the flak he caught. Jiang stewed for a moment and then finally gave in. He put a fatherly hand on Bumi's shoulder.

"Bumi… are you alright?" he asked. Bumi slowly turned to look up at him.

"I'm not sure" he replied slowly, then returned his gaze to the wall. Jiang paused. The boy was not going to open up to him. Thirteen was a difficult age, Jiang recalled, full of uncertainty and self-discovery. He made up his mind and pulled the letter to Antius back out of Bumi's hand, tearing it in half and placing the pieces in the pocket of his robes. Bumi looked up again in genuine gratitude. Jiang smiled back.

"And don't bother with the sentences, Bumi… But do apologize. You don't want Kee as an enemy," he said with a final pat as he turned to return to his class.

"Thank you Master Jiang. I will." Jiang smiled. When Bumi wasn't challenging the wisdom of your lessons or replacing the other students' report cards with rather harsher forgeries, the kid actually wasn't so bad.

--

Bumi stood quietly in the hallway for some minutes after Jiang departed, his mind still fixated on what he had seen. Had he not been a scribe, and one with such an astute memory, he might have missed it. But no, to him, the handwriting did not lie. Each person had their own way of writing about the world, just as each person had their own way of looking at it. Nobody could write exactly like someone else, Bumi had decided, and so the king must not have written those orders. But why? Bumi felt his whole view of the world, his reverence for the king's position, crumbling away. His hero, his standard for behavior and mannerisms did not even write his own missives? Bumi was heartbroken.

_No, no, _Bumi quickly corrected himself, ashamed at his needling doubts. He needed to prove it. There _had_ to be an explanation. The king could have dictated the letters, or Kee simply had remarkably similar handwriting. Come to think of it, Bumi wasn't even sure now if he had seen what he thought he had seen. Maybe he had been delusional with boredom and had been hallucinating. The king deserved the benefit of a doubt; he was Bumi's king, his lord, his master, his role model, his everything. Even so, however, Bumi was nobody's fool. No man, not even the king of Omashu… not even the king of the whole _world_, would deceive him. He had to know the truth. Which meant he had to ask Kee.

A plan formed instantly within his mind and he set off at once for Antius' office. The letters he needed to prove his idol's innocence would have been filed away in the archives within. Bumi's pace was fast and determined, so much so that he did not even slow down to put his things in his room, but rather tossed them roughly through the door as he passed by. Bumi climbed the all-too familiar staircase into the scribing chamber and immediately hid between the heavy oaken door and the nearby wall, sandwiching himself in the resulting fortress while he listened.

With ears honed to perfection during his years as a troublemaker, Bumi attempted to place Antius and the assistant scribe on duty within his mental map of the nearby area. He could hear the sound of a dozen cauldrons boiling in the next room, softening recently-shaven animal hide into usable parchment, but the usually omnipresent scraping sound of the paper-maker's razor was conspicuously absent. That was good; it meant no one was watching the cauldrons. Which meant Antius was probably in his office and the assistant scribe was off running some errand. Perfect.

Without hesitation, Bumi scampered out of the scribing chamber and into the boiling room, stepping only on those floor stones he knew would not amplify his footsteps. He had done this sort of thing so many times in the past it had become some kind of second nature for him. He was convinced he could rob Antius in his sleep.

Creeping behind the line of long cauldrons (and ignoring the pungent smell of molten animal flesh), Bumi came to his favorite of this room's many potential distractions, the wastewater bath. Though the great barrel was filled with fresh water every few days, it quickly accumulated gunk and hair as hides were rinsed in it until it was thick with room-temperature stew most foul. Once, long ago, Bumi had attempted to merely push it over, but he could not muster the strength to do so. After a few failed attempts, however, he had discovered the secret to an instant, grade-A, evidence-free mess. Bumi kicked the ground, earthbending a glowing coal from beneath one of the cauldrons into the waste bath. The thick later of grease and grime that coated its surface ignited fiercely, sending a great plume of smoke and splash of burning filth bursting from its depths. Bumi ran away as fast as his legs could take him. He managed to reach his favorite hiding place in the hallway outside just before the smell of burning hair and parchment did.

As expected, Antius came storming out of his office mere seconds later, cussing colorfully. Noxious smoke poured out of the boiling room in waves as the drying stacks of parchment finished yesterday caught fire and added to the conflagration. Amongst the chaos, Bumi snuck his way into the office.

Here, too, he was well familiar with the proper procedure. Antius kept most already completed assignments in tightly bound stacks, ordered by date on the tall shelves at the back of the room. Eventually, Bumi guessed, they were archived elsewhere or destroyed, but nonetheless the head scribe maintained a history of at least several months.

The office itself was impeccably neat and orderly except for the several stacks of papers spread out on the desk, no doubt the young scribes' assignments for the evening session. Bumi scanned the shelves quickly, found the parcel he was looking for, and yanked it apart. He had last seen the kingly handwriting a week or so ago, in a letter asking for news from the Vaichen Valley. It did not take him long to find the letter he sought, neatly folded amongst the others he had written that night. He shoved it into his pocket and deftly re-wrapped the package. _Mission accomplished,_ he thought, thoroughly satisfied with himself. He whistled with tuneless nonchalance on his way out of the office, pausing only a moment to place half of the 'Bumi' stack on Antius' desk into another poor scribe's pile.

Bumi strode arrogantly down the hall back towards the classroom, taking a great deal of pleasure in the angry shouts coming from the boiling room.

--

Bumi waited quietly outside of the closed classroom door for the next several hours, cross-legged on the hallway floor. At one point, Antius stalked by, a furious scowl on his lips. He looked ready to yell at Bumi, but was disarmed either by Bumi's overtly innocent smile or, more likely, satisfaction that the boy was being punished for something already. Bumi couldn't help snickering once the scribe was safely out of earshot.

Eventually, Bumi heard Master Jiang's bell signaling the end of the day's lessons. The students poured from the classroom, many of them looking condescendingly down at the young troublemaker as they passed. Bumi remained where he was for many minutes, listening to the Jiang and Kee speaking to one another. Finally, the pair exited the room. Neither looked surprised to see him sitting there, and Jiang, presuming Bumi was about to apologize, bowed respectfully and excused himself, leaving the two of them alone in the hallway.

Kee watched Bumi with a look of mild distaste as the boy got to his feet.

"I do not know where you heard about the _Munificent, _child, but," he began before Bumi cut him off, holding the pilfered letter up in front of his face.

"Who wrote this?" Bumi demanded. If Kee was taken aback, he certainly did not show it, and merely took the letter from Bumi's outstretched hand. He pulled a pair of tiny glasses from his pocket and gazed myopically at the parchment.

"Why, it would seem I did," he responded coolly.

"Not the king?" Bumi asked.

"No. Not the king."

"Did the king dictate it?"

"No. I am its sole author." Bumi felt his heart descending into his stomach.

"Do the king's viziers make a habit out of writing orders behind his back?" he asked, his tone full of venom. Kee just laughed.

"Behind his back? Of course not. The king has his viziers write _all_ of his orders for him." Bumi was feeling worse and worse.

"Why would the king need you to write orders for him? He's smart enough to do it himself," he offered in desperation. Kee laughed again.

"Smart enough? I'm afraid you do not know your king as well as you think you do, Boy. Ouxi can kiss babies and dress himself, and he's a sure win in any eating contest, but as far as governance goes he is about as vacuous as they come. He couldn't do _anything_ without his viziers. He's not clever or smart or great or anywhere near it, he was just born a prince, so he gets to sit on his fat laurels while the rest of us try to stop the kingdom from destroying itself." Kee had a very displeased look on his face; it was clear this was a train of thought he often pondered himself. Bumi's lips pursed into a defiant frown. His previous adoration for the king rapidly evaporated.

"Now I think I understand what is going on here," Kee spoke at length. "Now that you know the truth, are you going to let this infantile behavior go?"

"Yes," Bumi admitted, defeated.

"Good." Kee folded the letter up and placed it within his breast pocket along with his little glasses. He began to walk away.

"Sorry" Bumi called after him, voice cracking. Kee looked dramatically over his shoulder.

"Don't be. Just learn from it." And he walked away.

--

Bumi didn't bother throwing a tantrum, nor pouting, nor trying to disbelieve it. Kee had told the truth. It stood up to scrutiny. The king was a fat, phony, elbow leech on society who depended on smarter men like Kee to run the kingdom. And Bumi had bought it, had fallen right into the trap with everybody else. Bumi was supposed to be _smarter_ than everybody else. He was supposed to see through this sort of thing, but he had been fooled too. The bile churned in his stomach.

Bumi spent most of the rest of the day lying on his bed, eyes staring unfocused at the ceiling while he mentally cursed himself and the phony king. Why were the most powerful people in the world necessarily the dumbest? And why were truly gifted people like him and Advisor Kee relegated to do the work, forever unthanked and unappreciated? The more Bumi thought about it, the more bitter and desperate he became. It was a sad, sorry order for life to take. What was he to do? Accept defeat and obscurity, accept the idea that no one would ever know the name of Bumi, never shout his praises in the streets? What _could_ he do?

By the time the evening scribing session began, Bumi still didn't have the answers. He attended nonetheless and dutifully transcribed his short stack of letters, finishing well ahead of time. He ignored Antius' surprise when he delivered his neatly wrapped bundle to the desk without having caused any trouble at all.

Night had fallen, but Bumi was not tired. Instead of heading to his room, he opted to walk around on the balconies where the Trio of Valor usually played. He enjoyed the fresh, cool air and the inky moonlight. It helped him think. Taking a seat on the railing, irresponsibly unafraid of the several hundred-foot drop below him, Bumi stared down at the city. In stark contrast to the near-silence of the upper regions of Omashu, the maze of dirt roads at its base was still abuzz with activity. Handheld torches formed glittering pictures of light, and Bumi could just barely hear the low roar of ten thousand commoners enjoying the nightlife, far below.

It was funny, really. Here Bumi was, living practically on the king's doorstep, a life many peasants would kill for. Yet he was caught up in the furious pull of the palace's tremendous demands with no power to speak of. Now that he knew the truth, the awful, horrible truth, he wanted to separate himself from it but could not. He was the pet of a puppet king. And yet the ostensibly more oppressed, living in comparative squalor at the bottom of the city's great, sloping sides, were not bandied about by a hive of bureaucracy and lies. They no doubt lived tough lives, but they were freer than they knew. Bumi envied them. If he was never going to be appreciated, at least it would be nice to be free.

Bumi's face twisted into a resolute frown. He did not have to envy them any longer. Tomorrow, tomorrow he would go down there. He would quit this stupid job and tell Antius precisely where he should shove it. He would go down into the city and live freer than he ever had. He would live life day to day, sleep in an alley with his animal minions, and eat stolen lambster every night. He would-

Bumi's overactive imagination was interrupted by a sudden twinkling at the periphery of his vision. He stood and scanned the horizon for a moment before his eyes landed on a burning point of light in the distance. It was large, much larger than any star he'd ever seen, and it glowed a furious red color. It looked somehow out of place amongst the serene backdrop of the night sky, far more striking and aggressive. Furthermore, if he was still enough, Bumi could just barely see it move, tracing its way towards him.

He'd seen shooting stars before, but nothing like this.

What in the world was it?

--

A/N: Haha! I'm on to your tricks! You thought your little 'not reviewing' strategy would dishearten me into quitting this story, but it looks like the joke's on you, for I've gone ahead and written another chapter NONETHELESS! Eat that!

I guess you had better just start reviewing. You're clearly outmatched.


	4. III: Bumi and the Printing Press

Episode III: Bumi and the Printing Press 

100 years ago (Bumi age 13), late summer.

--

Bumi yawned as he wove his way down the bustling streets of Omashu, having stayed up rather later than he should have to watch the fiery object in the sky get closer and closer. He had snuck all over the upper levels, trying to find a viewing angle that could give him a clearer idea of what it was, but eventually had fallen asleep propped against a column, no closer to understanding.

In the morning's bright sunlight, the object was nowhere to be seen. Whenever there was enough of a break in the endless pile of stone buildings, Bumi would strain his eyes, searching the horizons in the distance to see if it had returned, but so far there was nothing.

When he had woken up this morning (already, he proudly noted, more than an hour too late for class and quite outside of anything he'd call a bed) he was more than ready to begin his new life. Yes sir, it would be stolen lambster every night from now on. Who needed class? Who needed beds? So he had dusted himself off and, not bothering to return to his room (he wouldn't need his stuff where he was going), began the long trip down Omashu's majestic sloped sides. His bare feet slapped pleasantly against the warm stone and Bumi felt more alive than he had in months.

The farther Bumi walked from the palace, the more omnipresent the hustle and bustle of the city became. Unlike the silent, orderly streets reserved for wealthier people, the lower parts of the city were intoxicatingly alive. Colors and sounds were vibrant. Tanned, calloused people worked like anthoppers, setting about their daily chores without the burden of having anybody to answer to. They worked to live and lived to work, instead of merely working because they were ordered to. They were not bereft of joviality either, however, and amongst the sounds of blacksmiths' hammers, carpenters' saws, and the shouts of merchants hocking their goods was much song and laughter. No one was quiet-spoken or reserved here; nobody kowtowed to tradition or pointless resplendence. Within his first half hour in the city, Bumi had nearly doubled the number of obscenities in his lexicon. He wasn't at all sure what a _pingnu_ was, but it was clearly something very insulting. He resolved to try it out for himself a bit later. All in all, it was a very educational journey.

Nearly two hours later, however, Bumi still hadn't reached the city's lowest levels. He had no doubt gotten turned around somewhere (probably back when he had stopped to admire a glazier's handiwork) and had ended up in a long, curving path that ran lengthwise along the city. At first, Bumi had merely climbed over the buildings that blocked his further descent, but was met with much the same thing again, another endless path of shops and stalls with no cross streets to speak of. He scaled the next row of buildings, but when he met with the same thing _again_ he merely gave up. He wasn't sure why he wanted to get to the very bottom of the city. He doubted it would be any freer than where he was already. Still, giving up so close to the bottom was something of an anti-climactic end to his journey.

Bumi's stomach growled fiercely. In his state of depression he had not eaten much at last night's dinner, and nothing yet today. Worse yet, despite watching carefully, Bumi had not seen even one lambster, unattended or not! Surely he was in the wrong part of the city. Frequent stolen lambster was his future menu, he was sure of it. Bumi clutched his stomach in pain.

Growing hungrier and hungrier, Bumi checked each building for readily stolen food. As his hunger grew more persuasive he lowered his standards from lambster to, well, anything he could find. No matter where he turned, however, food vendors guarded their stocks with watchful, greedy eyes. He felt as if the entire world was watching him as he picked his way down the street. He eventually deduced that there must be something suspicions about his appearance that nobody at the palace had ever noticed. He straightened his headband, flattened his shaggy head of hair down from a blatant mess to a slightly-less blatant mess, and willed his face into the most guilt-free countenance he could muster, then approached a cart stacked high with apples.

"Good day to you, Sir" he acted to the fearsome man guarding it. He thought it had just the right ring of childlike innocence to it.

"Morning," the man grunted, not without cheer, but also not without narrowing his gaze on Bumi. Bumi balked for a moment.

"Uhh… nice weather we're having," he attempted.

"Yup." The man's eyes did not move from Bumi, not an inch, no matter what mindless conversation Bumi tried to lead him in. And so the standoff went for some minutes, before Bumi finally bid the man a false-cheery goodbye and walked away in a huff.

--

Bumi walked on for a bit before a delicious smell caught his attention. He tracked its source to a nearby tailor's shop. It was some sort of course meaty stew, he decided; a far cry from lambster, to be sure, but to a hungry young boy it smelled just heavenly. Bumi licked his lips and stared longingly at the storefront, grappling with himself. Was he really so weak as to be ready already to ask for help? No, no, he'd only been alone for a few hours now. He was stronger than that. He would not swallow his pride for such a base need as hunger.

Bumi turned and took a step away from the shop, and then another, but could go no further. After a brief pause in which self-loathing slipped behind food in his priority list, Bumi gritted his teeth and, pulling aside the purple curtain that occluded the door, strode into the shop.

The inside was pleasantly cool, insulated from the beating sun with its thick stone walls. Clothing lie all about the cramped store, hung imposingly from racks or stacked in rolls on top of rickety shelves. Clearly the store catered mostly to low-class customers, but it also did not lack in fine fabrics. Bumi found himself instinctively reaching out to fondle a lush purple garment.

"What are you doing here?" a gruff, hoary voice demanded. Bumi turned, surprised, to see an equally gruff, hoary-looking woman brandishing a long wooden spoon. Her face was creased and seemed locked in a sort of resigned scowl.

"Ermm… I am looking for… a garment of some kind?" Bumi lied, unsure of exactly what his plan was. The object of his desire was, no doubt, hidden in a room behind the shop from which the woman had hobbled.

"You got money?" she asked. Bumi grinned sheepishly.

"Not as such…" he chuckled, waving his hand dismissively.

"You lookin' for a job?" Bumi thought about it. Did he want a job? Technically, that had not been amongst his list of goals for this new life, but it was clear by this point that the list was in dire need of revision. Some ready source of lambsters would have to be acquired, preferably in the form of, say, a few dozen reliably blind lambster vendors. Procuring money to _buy_ the desired crustaceans, however, might also have merit. Bumi had not considered that option before. Bumi sighed.

"Well… I wasn't at first. I was actually planning on stealing food from you," he confessed, confident that he could outrun her if need be. Surprisingly, the lady merely chuffed with laughter.

"Pfft… I'll just give you the food if you'll run an errand for me." She turned and hobbled back towards the back of her store. Bumi followed eagerly.

"Okay… What do I have to do?" The lady mumbled to herself while she fetched a suitable bowl from a wooden cupboard, ladled a portion of stew from the tin pot atop her stove, and pressed it into Bumi's hands. She did not provide a spoon and Bumi did not think to ask for one. He dug into the soup with zeal, straining larger pieces out with his fingers and then drinking the broth in noisy gulps. The old woman heaved herself into a large wicker chair.

"You look like a strong young man," she began. Even with his face buried in the soup as it was, Bumi couldn't help but grin. "I want you to take a few bolts of cotton to a customer on the other side of town. My husband would usually do it, but he's off traveling and late coming home. Probably spending our profits on alcohol again, the lazy ass." Her voice was full of that ornery contempt which many old people had so perfected, but Bumi could tell her heart wasn't in it. She was worried, and stared distractedly out the small rear window.

"I can do that," Bumi said after a bit, setting his empty bowl on the counter. This seemed to launch the woman out of her trance and back to her previous cantankerousness. She slowly rose from the chair again.

"I should hope so," she grunted in false mean-spiritedness. She hobbled past him, leading him back into the shop, where she gestured to a stack of three white rolls of cloth wrapped around thin planks of wood. Bumi looked at them briefly, trying to figure out how he could best condense the job into only one trip.

"Giopi lives in a shop on the other side of town. On the corner, buncha glass, don't miss it," she croaked. Bumi frowned at the vagueness of the directions, but nodded resolutely all the same. The woman apparently considered this enough instruction, because she turned to lumber her way back into the shop's depths.

As soon as she was out of view, Bumi began rummaging through the shop for some thread. He had changed his mind about stealing from the woman, but he still wasn't going to resist helping himself to something that would expedite his work. Besides… It was a tailor's shop. It had plenty of thread, right? Finding a huge spool of yellow thread by a chair in the corner, Bumi drew out several yards of it and bit off the end. He deftly tied the three bolts of cloth together in a neat little stack. Stepping back to admire his handiwork, he considered removing the yellow thread to replace it with something that matched better, but ultimately decided against the waste.

Straining a bit, Bumi hefted the stack of cloth onto his skinny shoulders and sidled out the door. It seemed from the woman's description that he had quite a ways to walk. Other side of town… Omashu was a huge town, as it turned out, and he had a crick in his back before he'd made it thirty feet. Why did he agree to this again?

In another of his rare moments of introspection, Bumi realized he didn't really know. He could very well just toss the cloth into the gutters and be on his way, belly full, or better yet take it and sell it himself, but something in the woman's mannerisms held him back. Bumi felt fairly certain he had experienced his share of adversity, but the woman moved as if carrying the weight of the world on her back. The idea of cheating her just felt… wrong. Bumi didn't know how else to put it. Of course, he told himself, there was a certain pleasure in doing a job willingly, for money, instead of because you were abandoned to do it forever by your parents.

At that, Bumi's frown returned. The woman hadn't mentioned any money, had she? She was probably going to rip him off, trick him into doing this mindless task for free. And here he thought _he_ was the clever one. It sickened him. Still, Bumi found himself that day hauling three bolts of cotton cloth down Omashu's streets, stepping carefully over the unconscious drunks piled outside a fun-looking bar, dodging the trash that was occasionally pitched from nearby windows, and picking his way through all manner of degenerate crowds.

--

As luck would have it, the "other side of town" was far closer than he had realized. His destination was (he shook his fist at the cosmic mockery of it all) the glazier's shop where he had taken a wrong turn. Rather than all the way across Omashu, which would have taken him all afternoon to traverse, it had only been a mile or so away. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen the hand painted 'Giopi the Glazier' sign in front of the stunted little building.

Bumi had never been inside of a glazier's shop before, and he found it fascinating. Despite its squat and unattractive outer appearance, the inside's vast collection of glass panes and bottles reflected the light quite beautifully. The shelves were rickety and made of wood, and the entire shop exuded a feeling of severe fragility. Bumi was very, very careful as he dragged the cloth inside.

Giopi himself materialized from an aisle to Bumi's left, wearing a coal-stained apron and ridiculously thick set of goggles perched atop his nose. He flitted about worriedly as he moved, apparently very distressed by the idea of a young child amongst his precious breakables. When he saw the cloth, though, his worried face brightened (a little).

"You must be from Kihni's shop on the other side of town." (Bumi cringed at the imprecision of it all) "Funny," the man continued, moving behind a counter. "Loddi usually delivers the stuff personally."

"Ahh… he, um… is late returning from a trip, Giopi sir." Giopi did not look surprised.

"Must have been taking more silk to Gaoling. Never seems they have enough silk in Gaoling. Plenty of glass, or so they claim, but never enough silk. Simpletons…" Giopi paused to growl at nothing. "No matter, though," he continued after a moment, "Take this back to Kihni right away." He dropped a tiny purse of coins in Bumi's hand. Bumi would have stayed for a bit to look at all the fascinating glass, but the man made it clear that it was time already for Bumi to get out of his shop, lest he break something.

--

Back on the outside world, Bumi clutched the money bag in his hands. Again, it was tempting to steal, but again he felt somehow less interested in stealing than usual. He worried that something might be wrong with him; he had never thought twice about thievery from people at the palace. Something about this place, he decided as he started back for Kihni's shop, gave him for the first time reason to consider how he might be hurting somebody with his actions. Just this morning he himself had admired how the people of the lower city worked for survival and not for some other pretense, so he supposed it ought not be surprising that they were in rather more danger of starving should anything go wrong. Bumi had no particular interest in pushing them over the brink.

Still, it was very tempting. The little drawstringed sack of coins felt pleasant, powerful in his hands. With these coins he could buy an object, any object he wished. Picking two or three of the silver pieces out with his fingers, he considered the merits of pocketing just a few and returning the remainder to Kihni, but something caught his eye, and he tossed the coins back into the sack. A tiny shop, sandwiched between two larger, more imposing ones, sported a grubby sign reading 'industrial curios for sale'. There were no customers in the shop and it was dark and dank. Still, Bumi was curious as to what an 'industrial curio' was, and so he entered.

The inside of the shop was almost completely empty, its shelves no longer laden with products. Aside from the barren shelving and counter, the only object in the small room was a great box-shaped contraption of interlocking metal bars. Bumi could not at all guess what the machine's various wheels and levers were for and he stared at it in abject curiosity.

Bumi turned around, surprised, when a man stood up from where he had been stooped behind the counter. He wore faded clothing and a furious scowl. The man muttered to himself as he packed little objects into a box. Bumi just stood still and stared at him, and it was some time before the man finally noticed him.

"And what are you doing here? You one of Xiej's spies?" he asked spitefully.

"What is this?" Bumi asked, gesturing to the large metal object.

"It is a printing press, the first of its kind" the man replied, rolling his eyes to what he believed was a very obvious question.

"What does it do?"

"It paints rhinophants, what do you think?" the man looked at Bumi angrily. Bumi grinned and diverted his gaze back to the machine.

"Interesting. I wouldn't have thought there was much of a market for rhinophant painters," he replied, scratching his chin in mock deep thought. "I've always rather liked gray on them, personally." The man let out a puff of laughter despite himself, then approached Bumi.

"Alright, you caught me. It is for writing without a pen. You see" he grabbed a scrap of parchment from the counter and fed it into the machine. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Bumi."

"Bu… mi" the man repeated, depressing an ivory tipped lever for each syllable. There was a brief mechanical click in response, and the man reached forward and yanked out the parchment scrap, handing it to Bumi. Written on it were the two characters of Bumi's name, beautifully inked, perfectly spaced, nearly flawless. Bumi was amazed.

"This can be used over and over? To write entire pages?" he asked, mind abuzz with the possibilities.

"Yes" the man admitted proudly. "But of course nobody _here_ could understand that. I swear, I should have never moved from Ba Sing Se. Gave it all up to come here, and nobody understands the point of a printing press. It could change the world and all I get is-" the man kept up a string of expletive-laden murmurs as he puttered about the shop, Bumi apparently all but forgotten.

"What's wrong with it?" Bumi asked, fondling one of the machine's great crossbars in reverence. The man turned and glared severely at Bumi.

"Nothing is _wrong_ with it. It's the bastard 'varks and their bastard consortium. Nobody down here appreciates innovation. I'm broke, I'm done for! I've got to sell this monstrosity and buy my way back to Ba Sing Se before I starve!" Bumi put on a sly grin. Sauntering up to the sour man, he threw his little bag of coins on the counter in a dramatic, impressive fashion.

"I'll take it off your hands," he offered coolly. The man looked condescendingly down at the coins, then at Bumi.

"What do you take me for, Kid? This won't get to Ba Sing Se. Not even close." Bumi scowled and collected his money, ears burning in embarrassment. He made for the door without looking back. A flash of hesitance covered the man's face, as if he was loath to let any offer go, even a pitifully small one from a child. He must have been very desperate.

"Don't come back until you have… err… twenty times that much," he called after Bumi. "Or… eighteen!"

Outside, Bumi kicked the doorframe in frustration. It didn't surprise Bumi in the least that nobody understood the press's significance, but he understood. What amazing things could be done with such technology! He held the beautiful scrap of parchment, tracing the indented, inked characters gently with his fingers. He cursed fate for tempting him with such a machine but not letting him have it, then continued his journey in a huff.

He made it the rest of the way without incident, but was still moping when he entered Kihni's shop. She was back in the wicker chair on which she had stared worriedly out the window that morning, this time her hands nimbly sewing a garment together as if possessed by a mind all their own. Bumi moodily tossed the money sack and its full contents on the table and then turned to leave.

"What's your name, Boy?" Kihni croaked, not having looked up from her work.

"Bumi," Bumi confessed.

"Well, you come back here tomorrow and I'll have more for you to do, you got that Bumi?" she demanded.

"Of… of course," Bumi agreed, deciding that he'd better keep his options open. Who knew if he'd find enough food tomorrow, roughing it like he was? "Bye".

"Take these, Bumi," she commanded, ignoring his goodbyes. She held out a withered hand. Bumi walked back, exaggerating his frustration at the whole situation with his exasperated gait, but changed his stance in a heartbeat when she pressed several copper pieces into his hand. He counted them over and over again. Four copper pieces. Not much, but still his first honest wages.

"Th… thank you, Ma'am," he finally said, pocketing the money and running out of the store.

--

Bumi strolled happily back up the street, fingering the money and glorious scrap of parchment in his pockets. Oh yeah, money felt good. He was suddenly beginning to understand why rich guys were so obsessed with it. You could _buy _stuff with money. Whatever you wanted! Bumi's eyes scanned every shop carefully as he memorized the feeling, the weight of the coins in his hand. But what to spend them on? A drunken shout of glee brought his attention to the bar he had passed earlier. The place reeked of music, joviality, and some rather less pleasant things. Bumi's eyes lit up in realization. The bar! It was the perfect place for a young entrepreneur to spend his hard-earned wages!

Bumi strode purposefully into the smoky building, ignoring the many pairs of eyes that followed him. Omashu's lower city was not known for its wholesomeness, but still, it was uncommon to see prepubescent bar patrons. Of course, Bumi didn't know this and held his head up high. He walked right up to the counter and took a seat next to a mammoth, bearded man. The barkeep eyed him suspiciously, but business was business and as soon as Bumi pulled the coins out of his pocket, he approached, leaning on the polished stone counter.

"What can I get you, boy?" Bumi didn't answer for a moment, preoccupied with observing the other bar patrons. After a bit, however, he grinned at the bartender and said in his most gravely, manly voice "Gimme somethin' strong". The barkeeper was dubious, but took the money anyway.

"Comin' right up Little Man." Bumi nodded, pleased at having been promoted already from 'boy' to 'little man'. He supposed that was still a step below just 'man', but he was in fact rather little and you had to start somewhere, right? Yes, he definitely felt decidedly tougher in here. The noxious smoke and disgusting lack of cleanliness were bracing and apparently very very manly.

Bumi kept his ears active as he listened to the other patrons' conversations. Most of them were engaged in arguing about the outcomes of some kind of gladiatorial match, describing their favored fighters with colorful nicknames and delightfully obscene language. Bumi decided to try it. Leaning over, he elbowed the large man beside him.

"Yargh," he said, deciding that pirates were also manly and thus their vernacular applicable in this situation, "I'm pretty sure Captain Omstrom Zanzibar Bizzorzix Furdo Makrik the Fourth will defeat your favored fighter in the upcoming match, you clod." The man looked incredulous.

"Captain Who?" he rumbled.

"Captain Omstrom Zanzibar Bizzorzix Furdo Makrik the Fourth!" Bumi repeated. The man rolled his eyes.

"Never heard of him. Besides, Bizzorzix isn't even a name."

"Yes it is! I knew a guy named Bizzorzix!" Bumi protested.

"Whatever. He's probably a pansy. Won't beat Wormstrang, not a chance," the man grunted, returning to his drink.

"Pfft… _Wormstrang's_ the pansy," Bumi retorted under his breath, completely unsure of what a Wormstrang even was. He didn't have time to ponder it further because at that moment the bartender slid a huge mug of alcohol towards him. Bumi eagerly lifted it to his mouth, licking his lips in anticipation. He took a lengthy draught from it and promptly threw up.

He recoiled in horror from the drink, ignoring the laughter of several nearby men.

"What is this vile fluid? Urine?" he demanded of the bartender. The man raised his hands defensively.

"Hey, Kid. You said you wanted something strong, so I gave you something strong." Bumi wasn't sure what to say to that, so he decided to use some of his new vocabulary.

"You're a _pingnu_" he announced, pushing the glass mug off of the counter, where it spilled into the adjacent man's lap before shattering on the ground. The great bear of a man stood to his full height and gazed angrily down at him. Bumi met his eyes unafraid.

"What do you want? You're a _pingnu_ too." Bumi grinned, then, encouraged by the horrified looks on everyone's faces, continued. "I heard your mother was a _pingnu_ as well, actually, so I guess it's no surprise how you ended up."

The bar was silent.

--

A/N: Well, there we have another chapter.

The Earth King has invited you to click the 'Submit Review' button.


	5. IV: Bumi and the War

Episode IV: Bumi and the War 

100 years ago (Bumi age 13), late summer.

--

Bumi hurtled down the street as fast as his legs could carry him. He was impressed with the potency of his new favorite word. _Pingnu_ didn't strike him as a fundamentally offensive term, but whatever it meant was apparently quite heinous indeed to have motivated four grown men to chase a thirteen-year-old boy through the crowded streets of Lower Omashu. Bumi wasn't entirely sure what the men would do to him if they caught him, but considering how their impromptu leader, the colossal man on whose lap Bumi had emptied his beverage, bandied a dagger in the air as he thundered after him, Bumi figured he had a pretty good guess.

Shortly after insulting the entire bar, Bumi had garnered a head start by pushing one of the nearby decorative braziers onto the floor, sending oil and ash scattering in his assailants' path, and bolted. His foes were rapidly eating up his advantage with their longer strides. Bumi found himself not for the first time wishing he had Aang's unparalleled grace. He did not, however, and there was little to do about it at this point but resign to the fact and use instead his own talents. In a matter of seconds, Bumi had contrived a plan. A wicked, terrible, unkind, _hilarious_ plan.

Bumi stopped and turned around, standing defiantly and making a very rude hand gesture indeed to the drunken men in his wake. They let out bellows of fury and rushed forth all the harder, eyes rolling and teeth gnashing like beasts. Bumi patted his backside tauntingly and stomped the ground, earthbending a field of tiny outcroppings in their path. Three of them were sent tumbling as their toes caught the exposed stone and pitched them mercilessly into the ground. Bumi laughed aloud and ran away.

Checking back to ensure that he hadn't beaten them already, Bumi confirmed that indeed, they were as angry as ever. _Perfect… _Bumi spotted his destination and ever so evilly dove into Giopi's shop. He sprinted through the building and flew out the back door so quickly that the glazier himself was left looking bewildered, his neck craned in an attempt to follow the blur that had just rushed through his shop, thankfully without breaking anything.

Bumi headed straight for the nearest manhole in the large cross street, kicked the lid off with earthbending, and leapt inside. He, Aang, and Kuzon had employed these sewers to great effect in the past and had once traveled a hidden tube all the way down into the chasm. This was, to Bumi's knowledge, the only way into the city apart from the main gate, and quite secret indeed. How giddy with delight they had been to know such a secret, special thing, even though they could not between them imagine a practical use for this knowledge. Bumi knew he'd eventually think of something, and indeed, 'hiding-place-for-watching-a-bunch-of-drunken-pingnus-accidentally-trash-a-glass-store' seemed as worthy a cause as any. Bumi laughed wickedly as he replaced the lid above him, maintaining just enough space to watch the fun.

As expected, the men had seen Bumi enter the glazier's shop and followed with unthinking enthusiasm. Bumi flinched as he heard the crash of the men piling in drunkenly. The crash was followed by a second crash, then a third, and then somewhere in there (it was hard to say whether it had between the first and second or second and third crashes) a wail of such offense and abject fury that it rattled the planet. Bumi laughed quietly to himself as he listened to the muffled shouts and explanations. More crashes ensued and all four of the drunkards were forced out onto the street, followed by a very irate-looking Giopi wielding a broom. Their pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears and the enraged glazier struck them over and over with the broom handle. Bumi laughed rather louder, no longer exclusively to himself, as a crowd of onlookers began to congeal.

All of Bumi's restraint evaporated, however, when a passing guard patrol stepped in to save the men from Giopi. He snorted and guffawed as the guards tried to work out what had happened. They had quite a time of it between the slurred speech (as it turned out, four of the involved men were quite inebriated with alcohol and the other with anger) and the occasional broom-swinging relapse from Giopi. More and more people stopped their regular hustle and bustle to watch the confrontation unfold.

Sensing his chance, Bumi crawled back out of his hiding place and melted into the gawking crowd. Bumi stayed hidden and watched the hilarious scene. Only when the guards had escorted the leader of the drunks away in chains, leaving the other three to slink away like beaten dogs and Giopi to collapse into tears on the steps, did Bumi consider it safe to continue on his way.

--

Bumi spent the rest of the day exploring the surrounding area at his leisure. He was amazed at all that there was to know about this vibrant new world of his. The more conversations he eavesdropped on, however, the more he came to realize that in the peculiar world of Lower Omashu, it was not words nor actions but money that governed everything. Copper pieces flowed like water.

Before the afternoon had elapsed a peculiar trend started to appear in Bumi's mind, and it was this: Even though a vast majority of the people here lived their lives balanced atop the poverty line, many of the shops carried great assortments of expensive luxury items. Giopi's shop, for instance, was (or had been, anyway) filled with hundreds of beautifully crafted windowpanes, yet none of the nearby houses sported glass windows of their own. Bumi whittled away the afternoon finding more and more evidence for his peculiar observation. Weapons and armor merchants, cobblers, exotic animal dealers, not to mention Bumi's earlier encounters with Kihni and the mechanist, all sported goods well outside the price range of the average buyer. But why? How did they stay in business?

Bumi puzzled over the mystery for most of the day. Eventually he tired of slinking around shops to listen to people haggle and retired to a rooftop a few buildings away from Kihni's shop. His stomach spasmed periodically with hunger, and he decided that he would most definitely take the cranky old seamstress up on her offer for more work tomorrow, early in the morning if possible. For the time being, though, he didn't feel quite ready to beg for more food, and so he settled into the most convenient nook he could find and searched the sky for last night's peculiar sight.

It didn't take him long to find it in the evening's dimming light. It looked closer and more intimidating than ever before.

--

Early the next morning, Bumi returned to Kihni's shop, this time paying more careful attention to her stock. There were admittedly many garments spun from cheap cotton or flax, but also racks and racks of silk finery embroidered with ivory buttons and elaborate cowls. Most definitely too spendy for anyone around here. He considered asking Kihni herself, but was too intimidated by her perpetual scowl.

Kihni's husband Loddi had not yet returned, as it turned out, and Bumi again found himself running a delivery, this time in exchange for a simple meal of cornbread and jerky and four more copper pieces. He checked again on the printing press and again offered the customer's payment for its purchase, but was again refused. Bumi merely shrugged and continued on his way, leaving the mechanist to stare desperately after him.

Rather than return to the bar, Bumi took his day's pay shopping and, after much deliberation, emerged from one store with a shiny new carving knife. Again he spent much of the day loitering in front of shops and stalls, listening to the street vendors talk and idly whittling during the long intervals between anything interesting.

At night he returned to his rooftop, where he'd pass the time by whittling, practicing with his earth puppets, thinking, or just watching the fiery object's steady progression through the sky.

The third day was much like the second. Loddi still hadn't returned, Bumi delivered a modest but finely crafted robe to a local man in exchange for some rice and churky and four copper pieces, and he still could not afford the printing press. He loitered most of the day away, using his newly purchased pen to scrawl the occasional insight on the back of the parchment scrap the mechanist had given him. At night he amused himself by trying to perfectly copy the printing press's immaculate lettering but gave up when the scrap was quite crowded with ink indeed. The fiery object was closer still.

Each day that passed was similar to the one before it, and Bumi steadily became accustomed to the steady rhythm of the streets. Loddi never returned, Bumi ran deliveries for food, bought himself some object or another, and occupied himself with said new object while he spied on the economy. He was beginning to understand how it worked and could not only readily list the prices of most of the commonest purchases in the area, but could predict what those prices might be tomorrow and the next day. He even made progress on his mystery about the luxury goods. It seemed that there were two markets; the obvious one on the street, where poor people bartered for daily amenities, and a more secret, darker one. Bumi spent an entire afternoon carefully watching the weapon merchant's stock of polearms and seeing them sold to no one, but returned the next day to notice several of them missing, presumably sold sometime during the night. The mystery delighted Bumi's adventurous mind, and he spent a considerable amount of his time trying to figure out how he might find this secret market.

The nighttime object grew closer and closer, fierier and fierier.

--

Then, one morning, it happened: Bumi awoke suddenly to the sound of a distant impact, rather earlier than he would prefer. Turning over and grumbling, Bumi spent several seconds trying to find a more comfortable position in which to return to sleep before a second sound, louder and mightier than the first, shocked him into considering just what the source of these sounds might be.

He sat up groggily and scanned his surroundings, ears cocked in preparation for any further blasts. He could see nothing out of the ordinary (other than an ever-growing crowd gawking ineffectually at the sky), but his heart pounded furiously nonetheless. A third blast echoed off of Omashu's tremendous sloped sides. Bumi leapt to his feet, grinning at the many possibilities that his mind conjured to explain the sounds. What sort of thing could make such a thoroughly destructive-sounding noise? It had to be cool, whatever it was.

A fourth mighty blast shook the city, this time accompanied by a flash of light, barely visible over the edge of the city's precipitous stone walls. People began to scream. Gossip carried fast in Omashu (this Bumi had realized all too easily during his stakeouts), but apparently terror carried faster. Almost instantly, everything was chaos as people ran every which way, attempting to escape from whatever threat they perceived. Bumi was merely encouraged by the noise and scampered off of his vantage point, taking off for what seemed to be the center of the confusion with all haste.

Bumi wove his way through the noisy crowd, dodging people in various stages of hysteria as he worked towards the city's main gate. More of the explosions rocked the city's foundations, and Bumi caught a glimpse of a battalion of soldiers rushing in the same direction. Something was going on… something big. He decided to follow them, but stayed in the sidelines, lest anyone get in his way.

He needn't have worried. In the uncontrollable chaos, nobody attempted to stop the boy, and he made it to the three colossal stone doors that stood ponderously at the city's entrance. The soldiers were joined by more and more, forming a great snake of armor and weapons that streamed inwards from all directions. The great gates slid mightily aside and the snake surged through them, shouting a chorus of battle cries.

Bumi decided not to risk nearing the roaring soldiers. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but the first tendrils of fear were hooking into his mind. Something very dangerous was happening, and he had no intention of being killed by it. That would not fit his plans in the least.

He also had no intention of missing it, however, and immediately started up one of the gate's two monolithic guard towers. His heart beat furiously in his tiny chest as he vaulted up the unending stone staircase that spiraled up the inside of the tower. The sound of booted feet echoed from both above and below him.

After what seemed like an eternity, Bumi emerged back into the blinding morning light atop Omashu's truly epic gatehouse. A trio of soldiers was right on his heels and one of them pushed him bodily out of the way.

Earthbenders were positioned all along the great wall and were hard at work sending a devastating hail of boulders hurtling downwards. They grunted and shouted with the effort as they hefted available projectiles from the gatehouse's bulgingly massive stoneworks (it was thickened, Bumi figured, for expressly this purpose) over the side. Bumi made his way to a stone perch off to one side where he sat, mouth agape as he took in the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The snake of green and gold armor tore aggressively across the narrow bridge that spanned Omashu's protective chasms, but it was dwarfed by a sea of red and black that rumbled and shouted from the opposite side. Catapults, barely visible at such a great distance, spit fireballs through the air in spectacular arcs, smoke trailing behind. The shots thundered impressively against Omashu's walls, sending great fractures spidering through the colossal rock surface. The earthbenders atop responded in kind. Most could only reach the soldiers that had already begun their deadly trip across the bridge, but small teams working in concert could send a massive, house-sized slab of stone sailing all the way over the chasm and skipping across the enemy ranks like much smaller stones might skip across water.

The two great bodies of color hurtled at one another from opposite sides of the bridge, meeting finally in a fury of clanging metal and burning flesh. Bumi stared, transfixed, at the great flashes of searing white light that heralded the death of so many men. Bumi had seen firebending before; his good friend Kuzon was actually rather good for his age and Bumi had once even seen a traveling act of trick firebenders. None of them, however, radiated near the same deadly intensity that Bumi could just see issuing from these soldiers' hands. It was fire unlike any fire Bumi had ever seen.

Bumi paused as a revelation struck him. No it wasn't. He looked skywards, straining for ocular purchase where he had last seen the fiery beast in the sky. Indeed, there it was. Its outline was hazy in the sunlight, but it radiated the same sort of elemental fury that the great red and black host was turning against his home. Could the two be related? They must be. Something very strange had happened to the Fire Nation.

Though the Earth Army had a stellar advantage on the stony bridge (which they used to great effect, shaking it mercilessly to send their foes pouring over the sides to their deaths), it was clearly outmatched. They began to back up, driven backwards by the endless push of their enemies. The firebenders surged forward, fearlessly pressing onto the narrow bridge despite the great potential for rock-related death both above and below them. The Earth Army fought for every inch, but the snake of green and gold dwindled in size with each passing minute.

Even as they forced the Earth Army all the way back to the gate, however, it was clear that the Fire Army was making very little real progress. Their catapults continued to rail against Omashu's bulk, fissuring the rock with epic report, but each time any significant damage was dealt a group of earthbenders would intervene and, working together, stitch the rocky surface back into place, as durable and unyielding as ever. The Fire Army swatted their foes like flies, but presented an easier and easier target as they inched their way across the narrow stone bridge.

Bumi watched, transfixed, as the last of the earth soldiers retreated through the opening gate. They had not stood a chance in straightforward combat. Bumi tried to guess at what would happen next. The gate closed again and Bumi stared down to see the firebenders let out a cheer of victory. Their cheering was short lived, however, as they seemed to realize that routing Omashu's army and actually possessing the city were two very different things. The earthbenders atop the gatehouse did not cease their assault for a moment, and continued to rain large boulders on the hapless Fire Army.

The catapults continued to rail against Omashu's great walls, but as before, made no progress, even when several of them were wheeled onto the bridge to get a better shot. Each time the damage was done, it was quickly repaired as if it had never happened. The firebenders at the gate seemed to be growing desperate and shot flames at the gate, but stone's notorious non-flammability reared its ugly head once again. It did not take the enemy long to realize the futility of sitting below an impenetrable gate while stone rained on them from above, and they quickly started to devolve into chaos. They floundered about as those soldiers on the near end of the bridge started to bid a hasty retreat while those towards the far end of the bridge unknowingly pressed on. All the while, earthbenders knocked them to their doom with well-placed stones.

The Fire Army languished a bit longer as it made one final attempt to pull itself together, but underneath a storm of flying stones nothing organized could be done. Within minutes the enemy soldiers had thrown order to the wind, abandoned their units and catapults, and retreated, rushing en masse into the foothills and scrubland that surrounded Omashu. Bumi watched solemnly as the earthbenders continued to harry the firebenders' retreat, propelling rock farther and farther to punish the tail end of the diminishing mass.

As the last unmanned catapult was reduced to splinters under a rolling boulder, there was a collective sigh of relief from the earthbenders atop the gate. Many of them immediately collapsed from exhaustion, having only lasted as long as they did through sheer stubbornness and might. There were some cheers and laughter, boasting about Omashu's great strength, but they quickly died out as each soldier suddenly found occasion to question why their supposed ally had felt the need to eradicate their city. Further disheartening was the just-barely-visible presence of Fire Nation watch parties perched on all of the nearest hills. They would return. Perhaps most disheartening of all, however, was the mystery of the firebenders' sudden and quite inexplicable power.

Bumi began descending the tower, anxious to be out of the way before the soldiers felt idle enough to question his presence. His mind was thrumming with the excitement of what he had just seen. Oh, had he been there he would have made a difference. He would have gone _pkew pkew pkew_ and earthbended them all so hard their mothers wouldn't recognize them. Bumi struck a few unrefined earthbending poses for emphasis. In his own mental recap of the battle, should he have been there, he was more than a match for the entire firebending army, strange new powers or not. He would stand alone in the middle of the bridge and defeat them all! What an adventurous, powerful thing war was! It was as if all of the scenarios Bumi had contrived for his various host of long-named characters were played out before him! It exceeded his wildest expectations.

Until, of course, he reached the bottom of the tower and was faced with the all-too-stunning reality. He had watched the gold and green snake cut its way into the ocean of red and black, had watched it begin to crumble under flashes of white light, and had watched it turn tail and retreat. When the snake was no longer a snake, though, and was instead a great many dozens of men with lives and families, it took on rather a less romantic appearance. People were swarming towards the gate from all sides to help the remaining soldiers get through. Most of the men were beset with horrific injuries, many with flesh scalded so deep one could see the blackened bones. Bumi wretched as he saw a man cradling his own burbling innards like a baby. Another man's steel and leather helmet had actually been melted onto his head, and he screamed in agony as he tried to remove it.

Bumi watched on in morbid curiosity as those soldiers lucky enough not to die on the spot were carried off to the nearest healers, some propped up against helpful citizens, others in stretchers jury-rigged from whatever could be found. The air was thick with the stench of blood and death and steadily became thicker still as clouds of flies arrived to take advantage of the carnage. Bumi followed the grisly procession.

The hospital overflowed with injured soldiers, its limited beds rapidly filled. Many not fortunate enough to receive a bed were lain down in a nearby empty warehouse, or taken in by the owners of surrounding homes. Everywhere healers and herbalists scurried about, pushing their way through throngs of relatives and trying desperately to rescue as many as possible. Bumi quickly lost any interest he may have had in the whole situation after witnessing one man's shattered forearm amputated in a single, swift stroke. He cringed, eyes closed, at the man's agonized yell. Unable to take it any longer, Bumi turned and ran.

--

Bumi was almost all the way home before he slowed his pace, and a bit further still when he finally deemed it safe to open his eyes. The great din of buzzing flies and widows wailing as they clutched the broken remains of their husbands was technically far behind him, but the sound of it replayed with vicious persistence in his head. From this distance, everything was quiet except for the occasional muffled sounds of sorrow coming from behind locked doors. The shops were open and street vendors sat despondently by their wares, but nobody seemed in any great hurry to buy or sell today.

Though it was already high noon and Bumi had not eaten since the previous day, he found he had no appetite and did not bother going to Kihni's shop. Instead he climbed atop his roof and sat morosely by his disorderly pile of recent purchases, legs dangling over the edge. Bumi felt uncertain and afraid about so many different things at once. He could not be said to be the most innocent person in the world (indeed, far from it), but no child, petty criminal or not, could see such carnage and not undergo some fundamental change. Indeed, Bumi felt hollow, lifeless, _soulless_. He had known that the Fire Nation was behaving more and more erratically. A full-blown attack, however, the sudden, intentional snuffing out of so many valiant men, still seemed hard to fathom. He was the proud veteran of a thousand imaginary battles against all manner of deadly foes, but after seeing only one real one he felt quite sick of war indeed. Bumi threw up over the side of the building.

After an unproductive hour or so of staring at the ground trying to work his mind around what it had seen, Bumi finally gave up and decided to go visit Kihni. His hunger was beginning to overtake his nausea and perhaps, he reasoned, doing a delivery would take his mind off of things.

When he entered her shop, however, something felt immediately wrong. The candles hadn't been lit (which wasn't hugely surprising by itself) but also he did not hear Kihni's tell tale shuffle coming out to meet him like he usually did, nor was there the smell of cooking food. Bumi could hear the old woman sobbing in her cramped little kitchen in the back and he cautiously crept in to meet her.

Kihni was leaned heavily in her wicker chair, a discarded sewing project draped upon her lap. She was weeping quietly, periodically staring out of the window through tearful eyes. Bumi was unsure of what to do. Kihni had always seemed so sturdy a spirit, aggressive and feisty despite her old age. It wasn't hard to guess at what she might be crying about, though, considering her husband had been gone for weeks and now Omashu was surrounded by a great host of hostile firebenders. Bumi eventually approached her, reached up and patted a hand on her bony shoulder in a consoling fashion.

"It's…" he struggled for a moment, wondering if he could promise something like this (his last promise to Kuzon had turned out quite false, after all) "It's going to be alright. It's going to be alright." Bumi couldn't think of anything else to say, but it seemed to do the trick, because Kihni reached forward and enveloped him in a crushing hug. She wailed all the louder, but clutched Bumi to her breast as if he were her own child. Bumi returned the hug, still patting her rhythmically on the back, doing his best to comfort her. He was surprised to find himself barely holding back tears himself.

"It's going to be alright."

--

After a while Kihni had pulled herself together, mumbled apologizes, and prepared a small meal for Bumi, which he quietly ate at her table while she returned to gazing out the window. When she didn't appear to be forthcoming with a new assignment for him, Bumi quietly left the shop, stepping back out onto the empty streets.

Finding the street vendors still quite unoccupied with their usual haggling (and not feeling entirely up to another day of espionage anyway), Bumi returned to his nook atop the nearby roof and returned to thinking. Comforting Kihni (and getting something to eat) had made him feel inexplicably better about his whole situation and he was resolved to consider the morning's events a bit more rationally.

The Fire Nation had attacked the Earth Kingdom, or at least Omashu, unprovoked and quite by surprise. The Fire Nation had a peculiar new power and a level of martial organization never before seen in this world, and yet had been thoroughly vanquished in their attempts to destroy Omashu. This thought brought a sort of defiant smirk to Bumi's lips. _Fiery scumbags…_ he thought, _that's what they get for coming to Omashu._ As horrible as it had been, the good guys _had_ prevailed. That was a very important thing to remember, Bumi decided.

He stood, filled with inspiration, and took a deep breath.

"I DARE YOU TO TRY THAT AGAIN YOU ASHTONGUED PINGNUS!" he shouted at the top of his voice. Several other voices rang out, agreeing with him and throwing in their own taunts.

If there was one thing that spread faster than gossip in Omashu, it was terror. If there were two things, however, it was patently clear that they were terror and proud anger. In a violent rush not unlike the release of long-held breath, more and more people lent their anger words. A chorus of assent rippled its way through the city like an earthquake. In moments, all of Omashu seemed to roar and pulse, radiating its great fury like one giant being, a stone golem roused from its millennium-long nap. The sounds of a city incensed reverberated out in all directions, echoed off of the chasms, ricocheted through the surrounding scrublands, and boomed out in warning to all. The tumult lasted for many seconds, and as Bumi beamed with pride he hoped that the whole world heard it. The Earth Kingdom was mad, and someone was going to pay.

--

A/N: Alright, there's another chapter, hot off the presses (as of a few hours ago). This is turning out rather wordier than I had expected (chapters 3-6 were originally only going to be two chapters).

On a related note, I've a question for my few readers. So far, I've incorporated several scenes, like the bar scene that straddled the past two chapters, that really have very little bearing on the story. Mostly they are just there for comedic reasons and to remind everyone how very clever Bumi is. Are they worth it? I mean, I do enjoy writing them, but sometimes they seem rather facetious next to a massive, deadly war background. Also I understand that my writing style seems ponderous to many, and so maybe if I trimmed them the story would be easier to digest. Let me hear your thoughts, if you have any!

Or even if you don't! I'm fine with thoughtless exclamations of praise!


	6. V: Bumi and the Undermarket

Episode V: Bumi and the Undermarket 

100 years ago (Bumi age 13), early fall.

--

"Did you hear?" the old man whispered to the cabbage vendor, who leaned in conspiratorially "what happened to General Rehn?" Bumi, seated in his customary spot in the shallow recess of a nearby wall, looked up from his carving.

"No" the vendor confessed, eyes wide. "What happened?" The old man licked his lips.

"Well, he left Omashu five days past with a bunch of soldiers, you know?" The vendor nodded. (Everyone knew this; Rehn had departed with the considerable pomp and ceremony befitting such a renowned earthbending master.) "Hundreds of 'em, right?" (Also well known. Almost all of Omashu's remaining soldiers and earthbenders had gone with him, hopefully to finish clearing the Fire Nation presence away from Omashu and attempt a rescue of a nearby garrison to the east).

"Well," the man said dramatically, "they say he got as far as Kawo Point before he was ambushed. Hundreds… no, probably thousands of firebenders jumped outta nowhere! Rehn and his men fought valiantly, but then the ghost of Avatar Roku showed up right out of the blue and killed him, just like that!" The man snapped in demonstration of just how Roku's ghost had killed him. The cabbage vendor's eyes widened.

Bumi rolled his own eyes and returned to his whittling. He wasn't doing a particularly good job of it, but it was a better use of his time than paying attention to these fools. In the two weeks since the Fire Nation's attack the shock had largely dissipated, to be replaced by fearful rumormongering. The king had declared a state of open hostilities and, within days, soldiers were dispatched to keep the road into Omashu clear. Many had lost their lives, as the fiery object still made its ponderously slow journey across the sky, but it was a vitally important goal. Still, with a powerful base from which to stage attacks, they could outmaneuver the enemy's greater numbers and most of the roads had already been reclaimed.

As soon as the roads were safe, news began to stream in from the rest of the Earth Kingdom. The Earth King had officially declared war after a similar attack had failed to level Ba Sing Se. Much of the west coast had already been decisively conquered, the Earth Navy was limping in retreat from a half dozen major defeats, and Fire Nation armies had begun spreading eastward. Much of the Earth Kingdom was not at all prepared to deal with surprise attacks like the stronghold cities were, and had fallen quickly. Massive recruitment drives had begun all over the globe as the Council of Five tried to scrape together the armies they needed. There had been no word from either of the other two nations, but for the time being the kingdom hadn't the spare resources or motivation to seek them out.

Of course, all this news only fueled the rumor-mills. It seemed that everybody and his dogmar had their own version of recent events, their own flawless strategy for victory, and their own convoluted theories as to where the Avatar was. Sadly enough, the idea that Roku's ghost was somehow responsible for the war was not the craziest thing Bumi had heard. (In fact, Roku had been rather unpopular in the last years of his life, considering his inability to fix the fading international alliances, so it seemed natural that some people would try to extend blame to him even well after his death). Roku's ghost was in good company, though, amongst other equally ludicrous scapegoats, including government conspiracies, visitors from the moon, and even giant centipedes.

The truth of the matter, Bumi had decided, was that the Fire Nation had somehow recognized that the comet was coming and that it would enable them to rival the much larger Earth Kingdom's power. Considering their huge dependence on imported goods and the deterioration of their trade lines in the past few decades, it didn't seem all that surprising that they'd act on this opportunity. The Earth Kingdom was poorly defended, spread out, and disorganized, probably best classified as ten or so weaker sub-kingdoms. It was an easy and valuable target.

Bumi recalled a previous meeting with Kuzon in which the young firebender had tried to explain the intricacies of Fire Nation politics to him and Aang. Neither of them had grasped it to Kuzon's satisfaction, probably because they had spent most of his lecture making sarcastic comments and snickering to one another. Either way, Bumi had gotten the gist of it, which consisted of a lot of arrogant terms like 'manifest destiny' and 'mandate of the Gods' and so on. It had come off as merely shortsighted at the time, but when said shortsightedness resulted in the death of hundreds of soldiers, it took on rather more meaning. In retrospect, Bumi wished he had paid more attention.

Thinking of Kuzon caused Bumi's mind to wander back to the Trio of Valor. He had not received any word from Kuzon himself, but that could hardly be held against him, as no doubt the Fire Nation mail carriers had enough to worry about without having to deliver to enemy strongholds. Aang, on the other hand, would no doubt have his tattooed hands full with his new responsibilities as Avatar. Who knew when the three of them would next have a chance to meet? Bumi's mood soured. This war was going to keep him from both of his friends. He tried to figure out against whom it was best to turn his blame. No doubt the Fire Nation was at fault, but the Earth Kingdom was hardly innocent either. No, no, once again it turned out that the stupid people with all the power, like the kings and Fire Lord Sozin, were ruining everything for the smart people with no power. He would simply have to outwait this brainless war. It would blow over eventually. Bumi spat at the ground in disgust (a recently-acquired habit which would have never been tolerated in Upper Omashu).

Tired of listening for insight but hearing none, Bumi tossed his whittled stick to the ground and headed off for Kihni's. Working for her had become a more and more central part of his day ever since he had found her crying, probably because she had accepted that she would need someone to replace her husband if she wanted to keep her business running. Neither of them ever said anything to that effect, however. They had an unspoken agreement that Loddi and his ambiguous fate were not to be mentioned. Bumi would show up each day as if it was the first and they would negotiate his terms (though they never changed). He'd complete the work, she would pay him, and he would be on his way to pretend to think about where his next meal would be coming from. It was a ruse, but it was comforting to the both of them. Nothing had to change.

Well, two things changed. For one, despite their continued imitation of a strictly impersonal, mean-lady-and-hungry-errand-boy relationship, they did grow closer. The meals that Kihni prepared as part of her payment became more and more delicious, and sometimes she would put aside her sewing and eat with him. They talked little, and when they did it was mostly pointless observations about the weather. While they could not be said to be family, however, they came to take comfort in each other's company.

The second thing that changed was a bit more substantial. Because of Loddi's ignored absence, Kihni was forced to trust Bumi with more and more important assignments. She was slow and fragile with age and, without the help of her husband and his aged ostritch horse, had no way to get around the city. So Bumi made deliveries, sometimes ten in a day, that took him deeper and deeper into the city. Bumi rather liked the work, and was starting to get a very clear mental picture of all of Omashu. He had yet to discover where all of the expensive goods were being sold, but he figured it was just a matter of time.

When Bumi pulled aside the curtain and entered Kihni's shop, he grinned from ear to ear at just how right he was. She was busy wrapping up the package he was to deliver as she always did, but the garment draped over her ancient forearm was no ordinary garment. It was gorgeous, a long dress robe of black and green. A thick decorative jerkin, also black, rested over the shoulders. A trail of golden buttons the width and luster of coins matched the golden wires that trimmed the sleeves and hem. Intricate patterns of green thread wove together across the back in the form of a hyenavark clutching what appeared to be a gold piece the size of a wagon wheel.

Bumi said nothing as he watched Kihni ever-so-carefully fold up the gorgeous robe, clamp the sides between wooden dowels, wrap it in a roll of black cotton, and tie the whole bundle up with decorative, tasseled rope. He fidgeted. Surely this garment cost as much as any twenty of the others. This could be his chance!

When Kihni finally turned around, holding the bundled robe reverently, Bumi was somewhat taken aback by the severe look on her face.

"Bumi," she said gently. Bumi was taken slightly farther aback by her use of his name. It was a breach of their little game of pretend. "Bumi, I need you to deliver this package for me." Bumi held out his arms. She hesitated a moment, then finally placed the soft bundle in his hands.

"Where does it go?" Again Kihni hesitated, a fearful look on her face. She stalled for a moment, then sighed heavily.

"It goes to the Undermarket." She paused again, as if what she was saying took some monumental physical effort. "Head up to the big midlevel mail station. Get in the delivery line and keep your eyes open. The biggest chute, the one that goes all the way down to the very bottom, will have a hidden passage hidden inside of the second column. Sneak down there." She looked wearily at Bumi, whose grin had doubled in size (if that was at all possible). Bumi was elated. The secret was his! The answer to his question! He almost laughed at it. Whoever had decided to hide the passage in the mail station must have been a mad genius indeed. It was crowded enough that nobody would notice if a few dozen people disappeared in its midst. Very clever, very clever.

"Give this to the guard," Kihni commanded, and handed Bumi a notched gold piece. "Once you get to the Undermarket, deliver the robe to a man named Xiej and then get out of there. It is no place for a little boy to be hanging around." Bumi stared, transfixed, at the gold in his hands. He had never had occasion to touch so much money all at once. Gold? Bribery? Secret passages? It was all too outstanding to bear.

Kihni seemed a bit discouraged by Bumi's obvious interest in this information. "Mind yourself," she warned, "the Undermarket can be a dangerous place." She obviously didn't know what the best way to discourage Bumi was, because threat of danger certainly wasn't it. Bumi nodded with what he believed was placating confidence, then rushed excitedly out the door, leaving Kihni to try to decide whether she was more proud or worried.

--

Despite his earlier haste, Bumi did not immediately depart for the fabled Undermarket, but rather returned to his rooftop. He had decided that anything involving a secret passage and the nefarious use of the word 'under' almost had to be done at night, so he spent most of the day imagining all manner of amazing things that he might encounter in this new adventure. He turned the gold coin over and over in his hands, enjoying its weight and the line of grooves that had been cut into its edges. He wondered if the guard might be bribed instead with less money, so he might keep the gold. He resolved to bring along the handful of copper pieces he had saved, just in case. He spent a fair amount of time also just staring at the wrapped robe. He considered opening it and trying it on himself, for it was clearly the sort of garment one ought wear while fondling gold pieces in one's hands, but he wasn't confident he could wrap it back up and so he did not.

That evening (though it was not nearly night yet) Bumi could wait no longer and set off for the mail station, coins jingling in his pocket. He told himself as justification that secret passages could be explored in partial darkness just as well as in regular darkness, as long as some manner of darkness was involved. There was a spring in his step as he scaled Omashu's great sloped sides.

He got to the mail station and got in line as Kihni had instructed. As expected, the line wound its way right past the support columns of the largest chute. Bumi tapped his feet impatiently as he waited for each person to argue with the lone earthbending mailman manning the station. He was strongly tempted to just steal ahead, but he remembered Kihni's instructions and stayed in place. Some number of eternities later (a bit less than three minutes to an objective observer) the line had finally progressed to the second pillar, and Bumi darted quickly to the side. He squeezed through the narrow gap between the column and the nearest building and found himself inside of a stone flight of stairs. It spiraled down ominously into the darkness.

Bumi (well aware of the proper conduct for spies on a secret mission) held back a whoop of victory and snuck his way down the stairs, taking especial care not to step too loudly. His excitement got the better of him, though, as he noticed a faint glow coming from the bottom, and he practically ran the rest of the way.

Forty feet later, Bumi skidded out of the staircase and onto… a balcony. A regular stone balcony, just like the thousands of others in Omashu. His high spirits deflated. There were no secret handshakes, no illicit dealings going on, nothing. Just a balcony, right out in the open. A street musician was propped up against a nearby wall, idly strumming his sitar. Bumi frowned. This was not at all the Undermarket he had expected. Had he erred somehow? He craned his neck up and could just make out the line of people at the mail station. What had he done wrong?

Bumi climbed back up to the mail station, slipped through the secret passage again, and very slowly, carefully descended the flight of stairs, feeling the wall for any hidden spaces. Once again he found himself on the nondescript balcony, with only the sunset and the musician to keep him company. Bumi cursed and tried again to no avail.

Defeated, Bumi slumped down next to the musician, who made no effort to acknowledge his presence. Bumi tried to sort it out in his mind. Kihni had told him to bribe the guard in this secret passage so that he would lead him to Xiej. He had imagined a massive cavern, stocked with many, many expensive objects. Mercenaries and pirates ought be milling about buying illegal shoes or something! What was going on? After some soul-searching, Bumi decided that Kihni had simply told him the wrong directions. He would go back and ask again.

As he stood and walked past the street musician (who had yet to play a cohesive tune), however, an idea struck him. He stopped and stared at the dirty old man.

"Change, Mister?" the man asked in a throaty voice. Bumi narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The musician certainly _looked_ down on his luck, but something was amiss. His eyes were piercing and dark, with a hidden purpose in them. It was very peculiar for someone who had sunk so low to possess such a hawklike posture and grace. Bumi tossed the gold coin into the man's hat.

"Wow! A gold coin!" the man acted. He picked the coin up and inspected it carefully, rubbing his fingers across the ridges in it as Bumi had done. Bumi nodded knowingly. He had done the right thing.

"Where can I find Xiej?" he asked proudly. The musician met him with a blank, stupid stare.

"Xiej? Never heard of a Xiej. Some kind of animal, right?" Bumi stared at him in exasperation.

"You don't kn-"

"You ever been to Cahlan's?" the man interrupted. "Great cantina, great cantina. Just a couple blocks from here, actually. I remember it… Used to frequent it with my buddies back in, oh…" he rubbed his chin, trying to reminisce. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"Ok, ok. I get it. I'm off to Cahlan's" Bumi said impatiently (partly to prove that he was capable of solving these riddles.) The musician grinned mischievously for a fraction of a second, then averted his eyes and returned to his idle playing.

--

It did not take Bumi long to find Cahlan's Cantina. As the 'musician' had promised, it was rather nearby, and guarded only by a legion of pickpockets (and Bumi, something of a practiced thief himself, felt well out of their league). The building was much larger and better groomed than the bar Bumi had visited a few weeks ago, but still reeked of many of the same substances. Wealthy men sat at the tables with other wealthy men, warily trying to outdo all the others in the lavishness of their accommodations. Bumi had to stifle a laugh when he heard how much a drink costed. A quick scan of the room revealed his next move; a pair of vicious-looking guards flanked the entrance to one of the private suites on the second floor. Bumi approached them.

"Xiej?" they asked thoughtfully, "Never heard of a Xiej." Bumi frowned in frustration.

"'_Never heard of a Xiej!'"_ Bumi mocked the guard childishly. "Yeah right. I need to get to the Undermarket and I'm tired of playing your game! What hoop do I have to jump through to get you _pingnus_ out of my way?" The guards were stony-faced even as Bumi jabbed them in the stomach with one finger.

"Our master is sleeping in this room and he has had a very hard day. Nothing you say is going to get you in there, so I suggest you just leave," one of the guards informed him. Bumi was exasperated. Another riddle. He just had to figure out what the trick was to getting past these guards. No matter, Bumi was a mad genius. If the Undermarket thought it could out-trick him, it was mistaken.

Remembering how the last fellow was dealt with, Bumi reached into his pocket for the few copper pieces he still had. To say he was surprised when he pulled out instead a notched gold piece would have been an understatement indeed. He was dumfounded. Perhaps the musician had slipped the coin back to him without him knowing it? No, no. That wasn't it, because this coin, though similar, was notched in slightly different places. The whole thing was deliciously complex, but admittedly very confusing. He was not about to let these buffoons in his way know how perplexed he was, however.

"Nothing I say, eh?" he asked smoothly. "Not even… 'Take this gold coin as a gift from me to you'?" He flipped the coin to one of the guards, who held it up to his eye to look at it closely. After a moment he grinned at Bumi.

"My mistake," he said, and stepped out of the doorway.

--

Inside the suite, a dozen or so people milled about in the bedroom-turned-warehouse. Tables set up against each of the walls were laden with all manner of expensive weapons, jewelry, and other stock.

Temporarily forgetting his mission, Bumi went from table to table to gape in awe at all he saw. Suspicious looking characters scanned the merchandise with discerning scowls, fingering an object here and there to test its weight. The merchants themselves (of which there were three or four) stood proudly behind their wares with exaggerated smiles, pointing out special features of some item or another amongst their frequent (also exaggerated) compliments. The bounty hunter covered from head to toe in smelly pelts looked, to Bumi's eyes, neither smart nor stylish, but the merchant whose three hundred gold piece halberd he was fondling assured him he was both, and handsome to boot.

After carefully looking at every product in the room (and apparently annoying every person, though no one tried to throw him out), Bumi resumed his search for Xiej. Another pair of guards stood at attention at another closed door. After checking his pockets thoroughly (no new coins, unfortunately) he approached them and asked for Xiej.

"Xiej?" they asked, incredulously. "Yeah right, Kid, yeah right."

"No, seriously. I have to deliver this robe to him. Where is he?" The guards glared derisively at him.

"Kid, I highly doubt you have anything Xiej wants. The Undermarket runs Omashu, the Consortium runs the Undermarket, and Xiej runs the Consortium. Case in point, Xiej is a very important man. He can have what he wants without needing snot-nosed kids to bring it to him." Bumi quelled his umbrage. He did not need a repeat of the bar incident, no matter how stupid and deserving this fellow was. Besides, at least he knew what a Xiej _was_.

"Where can I find him?" he asked again. The guard smirked.

"In here, but it's your funeral," he said, opening the door.

"Thanks," Bumi said politely and walked through it.

"_Pingnu,_" he muttered under his breath.

--

It appeared he was done with the riddles. Xiej, a tall, handsome man, sat in the center of the room on a green throne eerily reminiscent of the king's, if one overlooked the snarling hyenavark heads that protruded from the chair's golden armrests. Scantily clad women lounged about like bored housepets and a full complement of guards and servants tended to the Consortium leader's every whim. Xiej himself was currently involved in speaking to a merchant, who looked close to tears. When the man began to bellow and gesticulate for mercy, Xiej flipped an indifferent hand and two of his guards carried the sobbing man from the room.

Bumi gulped and hesitantly approached Xiej's throne.

"Sir, Xiej, sir?" he started, clearing his throat. Xiej raised a well-groomed brow in condescending surprise. He made no sound, but one of his guards bade Bumi speak his piece and be gone.

"I have a delivery for you, from Tailor Kihni." At this, Xiej's eyes brightened condescendingly (it seemed most of his gestures contained at least some condescension.)

"Open it," he commanded. Bumi did so, being very careful not to wrinkle it. He held the black robe high above his head so its golden hem would not drag on the floor. Xiej eyed the garment for a moment.

"Very nice," he said, finally. Bumi released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. A guard stepped forward and took the robe from his hands.

"Tell Kihni" Xiej began, his voice smooth and condescending "that her payment is forthcoming. She has been a valuable ally of the Consortium for some years." Bumi fleetingly considered demanding payment now, but Xiej again flicked his hand and the two nearest guards escorted him out of the room. Bumi left without a fuss, thoroughly impressed with Xiej's undeniable style.

--

Bumi returned to Kihni and delivered Xiej's message the next day. The old woman looked immensely relieved to hear it. Bumi was tired, having stayed up into the wee hours of the morning sitting in the cantina and trying to figure out how the Undermarket worked (as it turned out, a lot of black market sales were going on even out in the open, right under the waiters' noses, but all were conducted in a strange language involving the exchange of notched gold coins. To a casual observer it would have been invisible, but Bumi managed to detect the sale of a very large shipment of suspiciously acquired earth kingdom uniforms). Kihni, no doubt suspecting the truth, fed him and sent him on his way without any work.

After a lengthy nap, Bumi returned to Cahlan's Cantina that evening to find it unguarded and the Consortium's operations no where to be seen. Even after the embarrassment of picking the suite's lock and barging in on an irate couple, he persisted. He sat in the cantina and watched for hours, but no peculiar coins were traded, forcing him to head home empty-handed and very sour indeed.

True to his condescending word, a few days later Xiej did send payment for the expensive robe in the form of a small silk bag of gold pieces. Kihni discovered it inside of her sewing box, apparently having been delivered some time in the night. Again Bumi was enthralled by the extreme secrecy and style with which everything in the Undermarket was conducted, despite his frustration at not finding it again. Kihni seemed to take the successful transaction as proof of a job well done, and thereafter trusted Bumi with assignments in the Undermarket once or twice per week.

Each time, Bumi would return to the mail station, climb down the stairway to the balcony, and give a coin to the nearest person (who would be different nearly every time). The person would hint to him where he could find the Undermarket on that night, he would head there and find the Market hidden in plain sight. He'd use the coins he was mysteriously provided (usually, he discovered, Consortium members disguised as pickpockets would slip them into his possession, though other tricks were sometimes used) to gain entry, make the delivery, and collect the payment.

It was all a delightful game to Bumi, who viewed it as a difficult puzzle he had to understand. Though every time he went the Undermarket would be moved to a different place with different rules, his clever mind was beginning to find the patterns. Still, he could not yet predict where they would be, and so he took advantage of every Undermarket assignment he got, spending hours and hours there each time to learn all he could.

The dealings that went on there were far more interesting and involved rather more lucrative risks than those of the street vendors. He thought long and hard about how he might actually participate in the illicit economics himself, but with so little money he couldn't even afford to use the Undermarket's bathroom, so he satisfied himself with learning everything he could about the market and merely imagining what he _would_ do, if he had the means. He was quite sure that he could make it rich.

--

One morning some days later, Bumi approached one of his customary loitering seats (the nook in the wall behind the cabbage vendor) and found it already quite occupied. He found this somewhat distressing, as it really was rather a good spot to sit, not only because it remained shaded all day but because it was ideally situated beneath the pawn shop's window (through which one could hear all manner of interesting conversations).

The aforementioned occupant of his spot was clearly an amateur loiterer, and Bumi longed to chase him away. That was quite out of the question, though, for even if Bumi did manage to scare the scruffy man into leaving, the man had only one foot with which to do so. His left leg was a mere stump, having been amputated at about mid-shin. The man wore a simple robe and pants with green iron bracers and a belt (both pieces of the distinctive Earth Army uniform) overtop. He was unshaven and somber looking as he steadily carved what looked to be a replacement foot. Bumi could not in good conscience ask such a man to move, so he plopped himself down in a less-optimum spot a few feet away and moped.

The injured soldier took notice of Bumi's third exaggerated sigh and stared impassively at the boy. Bumi refused to meet his eye, and instead began whittling with unnecessary force, hoping the world was picking up how very generous he had been in giving up his seat. It seemed to him some form of karmic reward was in order any minute now.

As minutes passed and no such reward surfaced, Bumi steadily forgot his offense and settled into his well-rehearsed rhythm of knife strokes. Bumi and the soldier sat quietly behind the cabbage vendor's stall, hands at work but minds elsewhere.

Bumi was absorbed enough in his carving that he was not fully watching the cabbage merchant's dealings with a robed, mustached man (no terrible loss, actually. Cabbages were not, as a rule, particularly interesting). He eventually did tune in, however, just early enough to hear the customer curse the cabbage man's children, children's children, and children's children's children to an eternity of rotten luck and then stomp off.

The cabbage man pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation and sat back on his stool.

"What am I doing wrong?" he asked no one in particular.

"You should pickle them," Bumi said half-heartedly, still watching the injured soldier through the corner of his eye. The cabbage merchant looked down at the boy in surprise.

"What?"

"Pickle your cabbages. Buy some jars, salt, vinegar, that sort of stuff, and pickle a cabbage in each jar. Nobody wants regular cabbages because they'll just rot. Gotto save your money for food that'll keep well, you know, with the war and all." The cabbage vendor scratched his chin reflectively as he considered Bumi's wisdom.

"You really think that'll work?" he asked, a note of hope in his voice. Bumi shrugged noncommittally.

"Hmm…" The cabbage vendor leaned against his stall to think.

"Pretty clever, really. I bet it'll work." The soldier broke the silence, causing Bumi and the cabbage vendor to turn their heads in surprise. The soldier did not see, busy trying to figure out how to attach his new limb where the old one once was. Bumi felt a little embarrassed watching the man struggle with such a grievous handicap. It seemed somehow disrespectful.

"I'd buy one," the soldier admitted after a moment. The cabbage vendor seemed encouraged and set about to thinking while Bumi bashfully returned to his carving. There was another several-minute pause.

"You're a pretty clever kid, Kid. Any idea how to make this leg stay on?" Bumi locked eyes with the soldier, again surprised. The man's face was disarming; pleasant but sad. Bumi's mind quickly plucked a leg-fastening idea out of his recent history.

"Yes." He ran to Kihni's and returned with several of the long wooden clamps that she used to package fragile garments. He stooped next to the soldier's fake leg and the man obligingly pulled up the cuff of his pants, presenting the raw end. It was actually not as bad as Bumi had imagined, but he still felt his stomach churn a little as he cut little notches into the top of the wooden foot with his knife. He had to adjust them a few times, but eventually he managed to widen them just enough to fit the clamps snugly to the false shin. He slipped his finished work over the man's stump, careful not to bump it.

"See?" he said, pointing to the long clamps that now extended up to the man's knee. "Now you just tie some cloth around it to hold it to your leg." The soldier's eyes brightened in comprehension. He quickly tore a few strips from his left sleeve, handed one to Bumi, and the two of them tied the prosthetic limb snugly in place.

The soldier's face was hopeful as Bumi helped him to his recently repluralized feet, but as soon as he put any weight on the new one, he let out a bark of pain and fell back to the ground. Bumi apologized profusely.

"It's ok, it's ok," the soldier assured him through gritted teeth. "It's a good idea, I just gotto work on it."

"Can I help?" The soldier smiled.

"I hope you will. Name's Shou," he announced.

"Bumi."

--

The two of them spent the morning fashioning a working leg. Shou carved out a hollow in the foot and they placed a rolled up cushion of cloth within. He gave Bumi money with which to buy some thin planks of wood, nails, glue, and the largest socks he could find. Once he returned, Bumi helped him to fashion a sturdier support for his shin, which they glued and nailed in place.

While they waited for the glue to dry, Bumi and Shou sat in silence.

"So what's your story, Bumi?" Shou asked gently. "You just hang around in the streets and help people?" Bumi grinned.

"Just three so far, Shou." Shou chuckled.

"Well, three is really rather good. Still, don't you have school? Can't see why a clever guy like you isn't at the top of some class or another." Bumi looked morosely into his lap.

"I quit school. They were a bunch of jerks." Shou nodded sagely and leaned his head back against the building, closing his eyes in rest.

"I was at the top of my class, though," Bumi assured him.

"I'm sure you were. Still, what do you do these days?"

"Just sit around and whittle and listen to people talk. People say some interesting things from time to time."

"Oh? About what?" Shou asked.

"Everything. Money, mostly. I can tell you anything you want to know about money. How to get rich, even." Bumi didn't consider this bragging. He figured it was true.

"So why aren't you rich?"

"No money to start."

"Ah." There was another long pause before Shou continued. "How would I get rich, Bumi?" Bumi narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he questioned Shou's motives.

"Well," he began, choosing his words carefully, "there's this object that you could purchase for a small amount of money, learn to make yourself, and then sell for much more money to a particular buyer." Shou finally opened his eyes.

"And you would know this object and this buyer?" he asked.

"I might," Bumi said with a sly grin. They both fell silent again. Bumi prodded the leg to see if the glue had dried yet (it hadn't). After a moment, Shou opened his eyes again and turned to Bumi.

"I'll tell you what, Bumi. I've got some money. You tell me how to spend it and we'll split the profits." Bumi did a double take.

"Really?" he breathed.

"Really. Like I said, I've got a little money, but I don't have a house, or land, or parents or friends to go to anymore. Nor do I think I'll be off fighting to get any of it back any time soon. Yessir," his voice took on a tone of combined sarcasm and sorrow as he patted his missing leg, "the Fire Nation fixed me up real good." Bumi didn't know what to say.

"Can't buy a house, can't leave Omashu, probably going to live here homeless for the rest of my life anyway. So why not?" Bumi was about to agree, but Shou interrupted him.

"But…" he said, holding up a finger of warning, "you have to go back to school. A kid's gotto have an education. We'll hire a private tutor or something, but some kind of school." He extended a hand out to Bumi. "We got a deal?" Bumi considered for a brief minute, smiled widely and grabbed Shou's hand.

"We got a deal."

--

Half an hour later, Bumi and Shou were off to the mechanist's shop. Shou now sported a functional and, more importantly, somewhat comfortable replacement leg. The ex-soldier really was an excellent carver, and with his pant cuffs pulled over his ankles, the wooden appendage was barely noticeable at all (Bumi had been unable to convince him to carve a taloned, reptilian foot or other such perversion, no matter how cool he insisted it would be). Shou had only made it a few steps before insisting on a sturdy cane as well, but ultimately their project had been a success.

Shou bought the printing press straight away. The mechanist tried to haggle, but Bumi had assured Shou the man was desperate, and Shou held his ground. Eventually the entire contraption went for twenty-eight gold pieces (which, in truth, was more than Bumi would have paid, but Shou was apparently a little less ruthless). The mechanist was visibly relieved to finally be rid of it.

"It's all yours, boys," the man said with some measure of contempt as he walked out the door, leaving the pair alone in the shop with their new prize. "But don't expect to sell it. The 'varks won't let it happen. They'll come for the shop any day now." And with that, he was off without a second glance.

"Varks?" Shou asked.

"Hyenavarks. Slang for Consortium members. They won't be a problem," Bumi assured him. Shou looked doubtful and leaned against the counter to rest.

"So what now, Bumi? I did my part, now it's your turn." Bumi cracked his knuckles and grinned deviously.

"Let's do this."

--

As it turned out, 'this' involved a lot of meticulous drawing. The two of them spent the afternoon in the darkened shop sketching the machine from every angle, doing their best to guess what it would look like completely disassembled, and trying to figure out how it worked. Bumi had needed to explain several times the importance of this step. Not only could they be called on in the future to fix the machine if their buyer broke it, he explained, but if they wanted to become truly rich, they might well need to sell more than one. Shou was skeptical that the market existed for more than one of these peculiar machines, but was helpful nonetheless. In fact, he demonstrated his uncommon artistic talent once again with his neat, careful sketches, and ended up doing most of the drawing himself. Bumi used the press to label the drawings and type up his thoughts for how it might be improved in the future. He made a few mistakes at first, but he rapidly gained skill and could in soon type a page in mere minutes.

For the second time that day, Bumi and Shou stepped back to admire their finished work. Fourteen pages of careful drawings, each one's margins densely coated with Bumi's notes and ideas. To a trained eye (of which Bumi, being an ex-scribe, possessed two), it was an amazing accomplishment. Such a comprehensive and error-free manual would have taken days to complete in the traditional way.

Their work was not done, however. They still had to prepare for the sale. As Bumi was, unfortunately, a mere boy and not likely to be taken seriously (especially considering he used to work for their potential buyer until a few weeks ago), Shou would have to deliver the spiel himself. Again Shou was skeptical, but agreed to do what was necessary. The two of them composed a short speech and practiced it all evening.

--

Bumi and Shou got up early the next morning. They managed (with the help of two passersby who were happy to help a disabled veteran) to drag the press to one of the mail stations and Shou paid to have it meet them up near the palace. Shou looked rather daunted as he saw the strange machine on which he had invested so much already slide up the chute.

"How do you know that anybody at the palace will even _see_ us?" he asked, having run out of other questions. Bumi's grin was mischievous and unconcerned as he pulled a letter out of the pile of blank parchment he was carrying and waved it before Shou's face.

"I _told_ you, I used to work there. We will send this letter to an old friend of mine, and I'm sure he will see us. And I'm sure he will buy it." Bumi was not sure at all, in fact, and classifying Advisor Kee as an old friend was probably a bit of a stretch. Still, Bumi felt the two of them now shared a common outlook on life and a mutual respect for each other's abilities. Hopefully that (or the promise of a machine Kee couldn't possibly do without) would be enough.

They sent the letter by ostrich-horse and began their lengthy trek to the palace.

--

Shou quietly mumbled his way through their prepared speech over and over again, willing his mind to memorize it, but other than that and the _thump click_ _thump click_ of his peculiar gait, the pair walked in silence.

"Don't worry, we'll do fine," Bumi assured him as he started yet another repetition. Shou sighed.

"I'm not so sure. You owe me for this."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't be such a baby. I wrote the speech out for you." Bumi waved off Shou's concerns.

"Still. Not comfortable with this at all. And I haven't forgotten your promise to go to school. Have you?" Bumi had not and was disappointed to hear Shou hadn't either.

"No, haven't forgotten." Bumi sighed. "I guess it's worth going to school to get rich," he admitted, grinning hopefully. Shou patted his shoulder with his free hand.

"Now you're talking."

--

Bumi was right; they did better than fine. They found their press sitting undamaged at the nearest mail station. They dragged it (again by soliciting some helpful passersby) into the palace, where they learned from a guard that Advisor Kee was expecting them in one of the dealing rooms. Kee was there, sitting impatiently at a table, when they arrived. He did not look overjoyed to see Bumi, nor did he even acknowledge the boy's presence, but the fact that he came at all was good enough for Bumi.

Shou delivered the speech (not entirely perfectly, but well enough) while Bumi demonstrated how to operate the machine, typing up Shou's words as he said them. Advisor Kee's mood gradually improved through their presentation as he realized, as Bumi had, the immense effect this machine could have on the world. The man's eyes glittered in genuine appreciation when Bumi handed him the typed page, with its perfectly straight, error-less print, distinct only through being non-distinct.

"I figured it might help stop little kids from finding out that the king is such a fat phony," he deadpanned. Kee actually laughed.

"That it might indeed."

Bumi's grin widened and widened as Kee prowled around the machine, asking questions as to how it worked. It widened more when they were able to answer them sufficiently. It widened most of all, however, when Kee summoned an audience, including Head Scribe Antius, and had Bumi and Shou make their presentation again.

Seeing the look on Antius' face when Kee asked him if the scribes could manage the printing press gave Bumi such evil pleasure that he would not have cared, at this point, whether they made the sale or not. Antius feigned understanding and said a few words to that effect, but his face betrayed his discomfort at even being in the same room as a machine of such complexity. Bumi could not resist snickering a little, despite his earlier resolution to act professionally.

All in all, the entire sale worked beyond Bumi and Shou's wildest expectations. Kee handed them the two thousand gold pieces they asked for without the slightest hesitation and even requested that one of them return to the palace in the near future to teach the new printers how to do their job.

Bumi and Shou laughed and joked throughout their journey back home, stopping for a meal of roasted lambster at an upper-class restaurant they passed on their way down.

It was delicious.

--

A/N: Another chapter. This one is essentially the conclusion of the second major 'episode', which is to say that the next chapter will begin in a new time frame, a few years later. So say goodbye to pleasant, mild-mannered thirteen-year-old Bumi.

As for you punks who haven't reviewed… (insert most effective threat here).


	7. VI: Bumi and Mipsie

**Episode VI: Bumi and Mipsie**

97 years ago (Bumi age 16), early summer.

--

Sweat trickled down Bumi's forehead.

"Steady, steady. Use the legs."

Bumi used his legs, digging his heels as deep into the hot soil as he could get them. He gritted his teeth and pushed forth with all his might. The other boy was panting.

"You must be unmoving! Defeat your opponent with sheer will power!"

Bumi's arms shook with the effort. He felt his splayed hands sinking into the ton or so of solid rock he was trying to push onto his opponent. Said opponent (a fellow earthbending student named Hun) had other (and indeed rather opposite) plans. The great stone slab inched its way this way and that but otherwise had not made much progress for several minutes.

"Earthbend, Bumi! Muscle alone will not move that rock!" Master Gar bellowed. Bumi bristled at the remark and renewed his efforts, shuddering as he channeled his earthbending from the center of his back, through the palms of his hands, and into the slab. It stubbornly refused to move.

"Earthbend!" Master Gar shouted again. Bumi's scowl deepened with resentment for Gar and his damnable advice (though if Bumi had decided to be honest with himself he might have instead resented his chronic difficulty in maintaining bending focus). It was happening again, just like last time. Bumi was losing. He thought not.

Bumi lifted up a foot and stomped into the ground, sending three spires of stone jutting into the bottom of the slab. Hun let out a brief grunt of surprise as the rock stopped shaking, its base held sturdily in place by the hidden buttresses. There was a quiet gasp from the class.

Bumi stomped his other foot, sending a fourth spire of earth rocketing directly up into the other boy's groin. There was a solid thump and a wail of agony. Bumi retracted his braces back into the ground and then shouldered the slab with all the force he could muster. It tipped over in excruciatingly slow motion and came thundering down atop the neutered earthbending student. Luckily, Gar leapt forward and caught the falling stone just before it could press a permanent boy-weeping-in-the-fetal-position mold into the arena floor.

The entire thing had taken only three or four seconds and was followed by a moment of stunned silence (except Hun's whimpering, but considering the circumstances, no one could really hold that against him.)

The class burst out laughing. Bumi grinned widely and performed several showy bows, drinking up the attention. Master Gar flipped the rock slab out of the way and stooped to help his injured student. He pulled Hun to his feet.

"Silence! Silence!" he roared, quieting the class. He sent Hun to the healer's with another student as escort, then immediately rounded on Bumi, his eyes glittering angrily from beneath the brim of his wide hat. He jabbed two thick knuckles into Bumi's chest.

"The point of this exercise," he managed through gritted teeth, poking Bumi for emphasis with each syllable, "was to overpower your opponent. _Not kill him._" Bumi shrugged

"You said earthbend, I earthbend."

"We have gone over this before, Bumi."

"I won, didn't I?"

"_Winning isn't the point_," he hissed. "You are here to learn earthbending. Earthbending, which has been around for thousands upon thousands of years and is already quite complete even without you adding to it. If you ever want to become a true master, you must learn form, focus, and philosophy, which can only come from doing the exercises and learning the concepts that we earthbenders have been learning for generations. If you cannot endure an entire match without seeking an easy way out, you have no place here." Gar spoke louder, so the entire class could hear, and took up a defensive stance.

"Earthbending," he said, "is about strength, substance, endurance, not tricky halfassery. You must be direct and straightforward, stubborn and immovable as the greatest of stones. You must be strong," he pounded one of his club-like fists into the other "and capable to be an earthbender. We do not _ask_ our element like airbenders. We do not _guide_ our element like waterbenders. We do not even _command_ our element like firebenders. We _force_ it, we bend it until it breaks, until it is at our mercy. Earth is just a tool to be used. That is the nature of earthbending. There is nothing spiritual to gunk it up, no 'greater meaning' to its use, no speck in the sky granting us permission. Badgermoles use it to build their homes just as we use it to crush our enemies. Just sensible, straightforward power."

Gar talked with more and more feeling, clearly having given this very speech before. "When we bend the earth, it complies not because it is afraid not to do so, nor because it has been tricked to do so, as Bumi here seems to think, but rather because _it has no choice_ but to do so"Bumi rolled his eyes and exhaled sarcastically just as Gar's speech reached its crescendo. "Earth is a mighty element and can only be used by those that are mightier still! We are the stronger, and if you cannot be the stronger then you do not deserve to call yourself an earthbender!" Gar was red-faced with effort by the time he bellowed the last word.

Again the class was silent, overcome by pride. Hearing Master Gar present the other three nations as people who simply lacked the strength to deal with earth was to them very pleasing indeed. The line about firebenders (along with the way Gar had practically spat the word) had felt especially moving, considering how unpopular the Fire Nation had become of late. Bumi did not approve of Gar's frequent tirades of patriotic racism thinly veiled as earthbending lessons, but he could not help but feel a little prouder to be an earthbender after such a rousing speech.

"Class is dismissed," Gar finally breathed, chest puffed out with pride of his own.

The students departed quickly, anxious to get out of the sun and drink some water after yet another grueling training session. Bumi, too, headed immediately for the arena door, but was stopped by a muscular hand on his shoulder.

"Not you, Bumi. You and I are going to be strong for a little while longer." Bumi narrowed his eyes.

"You can't keep me here." Gar removed his hand and inspected his fingernails for dirt (or perhaps his dirt for fingernails; it was hard to say which was more accurate).

"That's true," he admitted, unconcerned. "But I can convince you to." He reared to his formidable height. "You are staying to work on your miserable lack of focus," he announced again. "Or else."

Any other boy might have meekly acquiesced, intimidated by the earthbending master's imposing physique, but Bumi was notoriously brave in such circumstances (like two years ago when the brainless but muscle-bound leader of a gang of street kids had taken to singling Bumi out for torture; Bumi hadn't seen the boy since he framed him for stealing his mother's wedding ring and locked him in a cellar, but he felt certain he'd never again look at flute wasps in quite the same way).

"Or else what?" he challenged, puffing out his own lanky chest.

"Or else you have proven yourself too weak to continue as my student. Are you?"

The question hung in the air while Bumi weighed his options. Gar was playing rough, prodding Bumi's weak spot. Bumi was a bit angry that Gar deemed him so predictable, but had to admit it was working. He grimaced as he strained internally, grappling with indecision. Gar's tiny, self-righteous grin was not helping matters.

On one hand, the very idea of being ordered around (much less baited so obviously) by anyone set Bumi's stomach boiling. Three years had done little to temper his pride, and he typically strove to be unpredictable, completely impossible to manipulate. Giving in would mean giving Gar the satisfaction of victory, which Bumi had tried hard over the past few months to prevent happening at all. (The scoreboard, to his reckoning, currently read Bumi: 54, Gar: 0. He would hate to besmirch such a record.)

On the other hand, despite all the trouble he caused, Bumi did very much enjoy his earthbending lessons. He enjoyed the feeling of solid rock rippling under his power. He enjoyed showing off to the little kids in Lower Omashu when he played earthball with them. He even enjoyed sparring with the other students (though only when he won).

Furthermore, after one fateful lesson Bumi had happened to catch his appearance in Kihni's full-length mirror and was shocked to discover the first hints of muscle on his theretofore skinny arms. He had taken to this new appearance with his usual over imaginative ego and had redoubled his efforts (not only with earthbending but with a rigorous regimen of striking poses in front of any object with even the tiniest hint of reflectivity). Progress was frustratingly slow, but Bumi had kept at it and had ever so steadily watched his lanky frame gain mass.

If he lost Gar's lessons, he would lose that opportunity, he would disappoint Shou and, as much as he hated to admit it, he might never master earthbending.

If Gar had not been there, Bumi would have sighed in defeat. He needed Gar, he needed Gar's teachings, and he couldn't bring himself to back down from such a challenge. Gar was there, however, and so he just hardened his facial features and nodded in the most assertive fashion he could manner. Gar just smiled and headed back into the arena.

"_Okay. I'm predictable,"_ he admitted, mentally cursing himself as he followed behind.

--

When Bumi finally stumbled through Shou's door and collapsed on the floor, he was, needless to say, quite tired.

"What's wrong?" Shou asked with distracted concern from behind his easel, this time set up by the window.

"Tired," Bumi informed him. For a time no words were exchanged and the only sound was the scrape of Shou's paintbrush. After a few minutes, Shou shifted his stool back a bit, trying to look at his work from a different perspective. He let out a satisfied sigh and set his paintbrush down.

"Why?" he finally asked, as if the preceding pause had never occurred. "Lesson run long?" Bumi turned his head to look up at his friend and mentor, who remained perched on his stool.

"Sort of. I'm afraid I bent a pair of stones that were off limits for some reason. Hopefully Hun didn't want kids." Shou laughed.

"Ahh…" he finally said, always having been a man of few words. "So what happened?"

"Gar made me push laps." Thirty laps, to be precise, and pushing the rock slab with which he had nearly crushed Hun. His limbs felt quite ready to drop from his torso.

Shou stood and walked to Bumi's prone form. Handicap or not, his gait was proud and strong, partly due to the new prosthetic they had commissioned be built for him. More importantly, however, Shou had had three years with which to accept his fate. He could no longer be a soldier, could no longer defend his nation as he had trained his whole life to do, but had settled reasonably well into a life as an artist and as part of the city's greatest moneybender duo.

"I think that mastery of anything will take some effort, Bumi. A little more so if you insist on mauling the other students," he offered sagely. They shared a grin and Shou helped Bumi to his feet.

"Oh, but how am I to get through a _whole lesson_ without seriously injuring _somebody_?" Shou raised an inquisitive brow.

"Earthbending lesson, Shou. Not the other ones," he quickly amended, grinning sheepishly. There was no reason for Shou to learn about the glue incident.

"Good." Shou nodded forcefully. He had remained adamant about Bumi's schooling, for reasons Bumi did not entirely comprehend. Bumi figured he owed it to Shou to keep at it, though, and had attended to his studies dutifully. Bumi leaned against the stone counter while Shou plopped onto the nearby couch.

"So what do we have to do today?" Shou asked after a moment. Bumi counted off the tasks on his fingers.

"I'm going to drop by Kihni's and then go meet with a fellow interested in the daggers we got last week. If all goes well we'll set up a deal. You need to follow up on the beekeeper thing; I believe he wants to meet this afternoon. Don't agree to anything more than…" he did a few calculations in his head, "say… eleven copper to the jar. Throw in the bees for free if you have to, but keep the jar price low. Should be pretty straightforward."

"Got it. And after that?"

"Nothing. Today's an easy day. Undermarket meets at Crosshatches today, I think, but no one's going to be there. Just a few silk deals tonight. I'll probably check it out just in case." Shou nodded.

"Don't stay out too long, Bumi," he said, more out of habit than anything. They both knew Bumi would stay out late into the night as he did nearly every night and they both knew that they owed their successes to the information Bumi gathered while doing so. Information was the most valuable commodity by far and if they were to continue to benefit from and compete with the Consortium, they would have to remain diligent.

"Of course not," Bumi lied, heading for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow it is."

--

Bumi strolled slowly down the sun-bleached street, whistling a cacophonous tune while his mind shuffled through his _actual_ list of activities for the day. The list he had told Shou hadn't been a lie, per se, but had contained a few omissions, mostly of the potentially dangerous variety. Shou was his friend and partner, but lacked Bumi's flexible outlook on business ethics and disregard for the possibility of being caught. Some things Bumi had to do alone, and secretly. Stealing sales out from under the most powerful Consortium members happened to be one of them.

It wasn't as if they really _needed_ to do anything illegal. Even without the occasional legal infraction they had been very successful. Using the money from the printing press, Bumi and Shou had started a miniature trade empire of their own. Their wares were varied and different every week; they had peddled everything from geodes to spoons, ink to desk chairs, steel wool to maps. In fact, the only consistent product they provided their customers was intelligence. Not counting the occasional painting or carving that Shou sold, they produced nothing on their own and instead made money entirely by matching buyers to sellers. They were professional middlemen, buying and selling trade goods according to Bumi's unnaturally deep understanding of the market. Whenever somebody was selling something for less than it was worth, it was a good bet that Bumi was not far away.

They were a good team. While Bumi sleuthed and mucked about in Lower Omashu, where no one spared a second thought at dealing with a grubby-looking teenager, Shou would make sales to the wealthier, more conservatively minded merchants of Upper Omashu, where a bit more professionalism was a necessity. Their partnership had worked amazingly well (as Shou's new house, modest though it was, attested).

So Bumi's continual raising of the stakes had little to do with money. Bumi and Shou were already reasonably wealthy, but Bumi found that riches did not bring him much joy. He still wore ratty clothing that billowed over his slender form, still refused to sleep indoors, still ran deliveries for Kihni and, except for the occasional celebratory meal after a particularly important success, had given up his obsession with roast lambster.

It was about the adventure. The Undermarket was a perfectly profitable (if a little bit illegal) venture whether you understood it or not, but Bumi had spared great effort to decipher its peculiar language of money and subterfuge. He had nothing against the Consortium (indeed, he found their brand of behavior particularly inspiring), but nonetheless viewed them as competition of sorts. They were the city's professional mad genii, a title that Bumi would not leave undisputed. Just as Xiej found delight in continually slipping past the authorities despite the immense bounty on his head, Bumi found delight in out-tricking the tricksters themselves.

To that end, Bumi often harried the Consortium with childish pranks. He had long since become fluent in the alphabet of notched coins and routinely introduced his own forgeries into the system. His messages were usually merely inconvenient, listing a laughably peculiar meeting place (he had once tricked a merchant into sneaking into the king's throne room, believing a black market operative would be stationed within) or strange order, but occasionally he could use them for personal benefit (canceling an Undermarket meeting to prevent a particular deal from going through, for instance). The Consortium fools were furious every time, but had not the brains to know who was responsible. Bumi snickered at the thought.

After the first half dozen or so hilarious pranks, the coin forging lost some of its novelty and Bumi began to seek ever newer and more ambitious activities. Indeed, Bumi had plans for today.

--

Bumi shifted in his seat, mostly ignoring the bartender's suspicious gaze in his direction. (Mostly in that he was grinning rather mockingly, not directly at the bartender but very much for his benefit). Seated in one of the furthest back tables in the _pingnu_ bar a few blocks from Kihni's shop, Bumi awaited his contact. The fingers of his right hand drummed against the tabletop while his left hand idly felt the smooth bundle of cloth Kihni had asked him to deliver.

Finally a soldier strode into the bar, helmet pulled suspiciously over his eyes. Bumi watched him as he ordered a drink, but made no acknowledgement until the man slid into the seat opposite him.

"You're here for the knives, yes?" Bumi asked, knowing very well that wasn't really why the man was here.

"Yes," the man replied, making it very clear that he was not, in fact, here for the knives.

--

Esto was a corporal in the Earth Army.

A year ago he and some of his fellow privates had met Bumi in a bar very much like this one. They had been complaining about the rigors of war and about how they were viewed very much like mere meat shields to cover the rather more valuable earthbenders. Bumi had joined in without hesitation. Within the hour, the conversation had changed to a discussion of tactics.

"The Fire Nation," Bumi had claimed, "trains its soldiers to fight, but they aren't built for it. If they weren't at war they'd be at home trimming their goatees… not the most rigorous lifestyle." He had mockingly stroked his smooth chin, making the gesture as unmanly as he could. This had aroused a round of jeering applause from the soldiers.

"They aren't strong like Earth Kingdom men; they can't bear the burden of armor for as long. They are thinkers-turned-fighters. We are survivors-turned-fighters. We have to accept that they are strong too, and extremely dangerous if they reach us." (This garnered rather less applause, but the soldiers continued to listen). "But if half of them die trying to reach us, it's no skin off of our backs, right?" The soldiers had fallen silent as they actually began to consider Bumi's words.

"What I'm saying," Bumi had continued in response to the unasked question, "is that we don't have to sit still and let them reach us. There's nothing weak about making a fight pan out on your own terms. We can keep moving and they _will_ drop before we will." The soldiers were amazed to hear what appeared to be sound tactics from someone so young with no military training at all (which wasn't entirely true; Shou still very much missed his life as a soldier and often talked to Bumi at length about military strategy).

To make a long story short, some days later Esto had convinced the commander of his platoon to make a tactical retreat instead of a desperate last stand. This resulted in, as Bumi had predicted, a decisive victory for the Earth Kingdom when its fully rested regiment managed to ambush and destroy a haggard and exhausted troupe of firebenders. Esto got a promotion and his own unit.

--

Now Esto was back for more. His unit was resting in Omashu for a few days and he was hoping to invest his money wisely before he left, hopefully to have a nice stash waiting for him when he finally came home from this bloody war. When he learned that Bumi was something of a local guru for business advice, he had gladly set up a meeting and agreed to buy a shipment of daggers as a cover story for something rather more lucrative.

"Thank you so much, Mister. I have to sell these daggers to help my mom make ends meet," Bumi lied cutely, hopefully to throw off suspicion (it was so hard to accept that he was too old to play this card). He leaned in to the proper conspiratorial whispering distance.

"Alright," he explained, his voice back to normal. "The spicemonger is making the deal in front of the ware-caverns at the west chute, mid-level, fourth plaza, at sunset. It's a very good deal. You buy this stuff and then resell it to Lower Omashu in a few years and you'll make out like a king." Esto nodded in comprehension.

"How…" he started, but Bumi cut him off.

"It's a lot of spice, no doubt stored somewhere in Omashu. The spicemonger will want to get out of there quickly, so he'll just give you the key to where he's keeping it. You can just leave it there until you're ready. Should be easy. Just get to the meeting before the Baron's servant does, give the spicemonger his money, and get out of there before the Baron figures things out." Esto grinned briefly.

"And by the time the Baron figures out who stole his good deal, I'll be long gone," he finished.

"Right."

"Why are you telling me this instead of doing it yourself?" Bumi rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"First of all, the spicemonger would recognize me. I've bought from him before. He'd know I wasn't the Baron's representative. Second, I have to stay here in Omashu. You will be off safely with the army tomorrow afternoon, which isn't enough time for them to identify you. Third, the third reason's a secret." This seemed to daunt Esto a little, but the promise of riches overruled his fear of being used and he stood and shook Bumi's hand anyway.

"Always a pleasure to help a struggling boy out, Bumi. I'm sure the knives will make excellent birthday gifts for some of my nephews."

--

As it turned out, the third reason that Bumi was willing to pass on this particular scam was playing out before his eyes right now. Stooped behind a pillar in the semi-darkness, Bumi watched the spicemonger, who was himself trying to remain inconspicuous just inside one of the ware-cavern entrance tunnels. The guards within the tunnel could see him clearly enough, but anyone in the courtyard would mistake the man for a mere pile of discarded rags. It was just before sunset; Esto would arrive any minute, followed by the Baron's actual representative.

As if on queue, a person with Esto's loping gait emerged from a nearby building and looked cautiously from side to side. The spicemonger approached him and the two began conversing in quiet tones. Bumi licked his lips in anticipation. He stole a quick glance down the nearby tunnel, verifying that the two guards were still standing at bored attention. All was well. He returned to watch the transaction unfold.

After a minute or two, the men seemed to have come to an agreement and, nodding, went their separate ways. They disappeared guiltily into the shadows on opposite sides of the plaza and were gone. Bumi's legs began to ache from holding a crouch for so long. He shifted his weight slightly from foot to foot, not daring to stand. The guards were still there.

It was a full ten minutes later and almost fully dark when the next person appeared in the courtyard. He strode arrogantly with none of the caution or secrecy that the others had employed. A cape billowed from his shoulders. From this distance Bumi did not recognize him, but anybody pompous enough to dress up for a secret meeting almost had to be from the Consortium.

The man stood presumptuously out in the open, fidgeting impatiently as he waited for the spicemonger to show up. When minutes passed and no liaison was forthcoming, the man took to stalking around the courtyard, prodding at nearby bundles of rags in irritation. Bumi could just make out a slur of cursing as the man worked his way along. The man's movements became more erratic, more angry and panic-stricken. He risked calling out for the spicemonger. He called again, but only Bumi and the guards down the tunnel were there to hear it (and none of them much cared to answer). Bumi winced with impatience, willing the man to play into his hands.

Finally, he did. The man peered into the entrance tunnel and barked at the guards. Bumi's body tensed, ready for action. The guards appeared uninterested in the man's problems, but nonetheless came when called, recognizing a potential briber when they saw one. The guards came to a stop just outside the tunnel entrance and stood impassively while the man interrogated them. Had they seen anyone in the area? Yes they had. Two men, in fact. Did they see who they were? No they hadn't. And so on.

While the merchant grew angrier and angrier (and began to accuse the guards of some sort of misdeed), Bumi snuck carefully towards the tunnel, keeping to the shadows. He didn't have to wait long for all three men to begin a shouting match and then it was a simple matter to slip behind the guards. He ran the tunnel's length as quickly as he could and threw himself around the first available corner.

--

Bumi flattened himself up against the wall and strained to listen over the sound of his panting. Nobody was following. He had done it. A wicked smile spread across his face. He dusted his hands off on his baggy pants and set off down the tunnel.

Aside from breaking into ones in which you did not belong, there was nothing illegal at all about the ware-caverns. Dozens and dozens of them cut into Omashu's great sides and were rented out as storage to all sorts of people. The particular caverns at the end of this tunnel, however, happened to belong to several high-ranking Consortium members. He doubted Xiej's stash would be here, of course (the location in which Xiej kept his personal riches was something Bumi had only dreamed of; the crown jewel of outdoing the Consortium. Someday he would find it) but Bumi felt quite confident that he'd find some interesting things. The Undermarket's tendency to meet within taverns had a convenient way of loosing certain merchants' lips.

Bumi reached the end of the curved hallway, where four narrow corridors branched off at regular intervals, leading to the caverns themselves. A thick stone door plugged each one. Bumi selected the first path and peeled the door away as quietly as he could. A blast of cool air greeted him and he stepped forth.

The cavern was of reasonable size; ten men could lie end to end across its depth, four across its width, and one atop another's shoulders could just reach the rough stone ceiling. Wooden crates were stacked throughout the room and cast tall shadows in the soft green light. Bumi pulled the door shut behind him and strolled down the narrow trail that meandered through the towers of goods. Many were open; he peered within these first. There were many bottles of expensive alcohol from the Uilar vineyards to the northwest (considerably more expensive ever since the aforementioned vineyards had come to a fiery end). Judging by the great quantity, the wine was being given time to appreciate. Bumi logged that fact away for later consideration.

There were boxes of silverware, some thirty odd sets of porcelain, many jars of honey (to Bumi's chagrin), half a dozen beautifully forged ornamental swords, and more. Bumi opened every box he could manage (if the owner knew what his expensive swords were being used for, he'd no doubt slip into a coma) and checked it all quite thoroughly. He committed each product he found (and the quantity thereof) to memory. He took nothing, but would by no means leave empty handed. He had already begun to form a solid guess of how the market would act in the near future. That was as valuable as anything he could carry out of here (except maybe those swords. He'd have to think about that.)

Oh what a glorious game this was! Bumi entered the second room, then the third. Each one sported a more peculiar menagerie of luxuries than the one before. Bumi was a mad genius. Probably the very smartest person in the whole world, he figured. But he was humble, too, and could readily recognize cleverness (albeit slightly less clever cleverness than his own) when he saw it. Some of the things these merchants were preparing to sell had never occurred to Bumi at all. Dolls! Why hadn't he ever thought to sell dolls? They would sell well; he knew it. Whoever had thought to sell dolls was a smart man indeed. (Bumi could outdo him, though. While the girls played with this guy's dolls, might the boys not play with Bumi's new _Fire Nation_ '_Action Figures'_, with real detachable limbs? He resolved to look into doll making later in the week).

As Bumi closed up the third cell, he could not help but grin, not just for himself but for all of the smart merchants of the world. They indeed were an elite corps, a rare example of the intelligent people getting their well-deserved power. While the stupid-people-run government scrabbled to keep up with them, they just sat back in taverns, drank expensive beverages, and watched their riches accumulate. Bumi was immensely proud of them all, competition or not.

Until, that is, he opened the fourth cavern. Instead of a pleasing pulse of cool air as in all the others, he was met this time by the nearly overwhelming stench of feces and decay. He recoiled and only barely managed to hold onto his stomach contents. The cavern had the distinctive temperature of rancid milk and the distinctive charm of a room full of several dozen caged animals wasting away in their own filth. The milk thing turned out to be a coincidence.

Bumi pulled his shirt collar up over his nose and cautiously entered. Metal cages lied strewn about the room and held a diverse menagerie of creatures in various states of neglect. A spectacled moray boa huddled on the metal floor of one cage, wrapped up on himself in a futile attempt to escape the cold. Six or seven bedraggled individuals were all that was left of a previously large flock of screaming birds. Exotic sparrowkeet species, usually bright and vibrant, steadily lost feathers in a tall enclosure to the right. There were a dozen or so small cages containing pangolillas, most of which appeared to have died already. A trio of tiny chamelmosets sat morosely in their empty food dish, wide eyes staring at Bumi in fear. A starving muskajou chewed desperately on the filthy bars of its cage.

A particular cage in the back, much larger than any of the others, attracted Bumi's attention. He gasped in wonderment and disgust at its contents. A large white furred primate rested wearily on its side. Its glassy eyes were pale and infected, its hide was matted and stained with all manner of unfavorable body fluids, and it sported a series of gashes across its once-muscular left forearm, which it was engaged in licking back and forth with its wide, dog-like tongue. What Bumi had initially mistook for clump of the beast's horrendous fur shifted unexpectedly and revealed itself to be a pair of infants latched desperately onto their mother's belly. Bumi was amazed and revolted. Bumi had never before seen such a creature. Even half-starved it was clearly an immense animal, rivaling even Aang's sky bison Appa. Its listless eyes were disturbingly intelligent, too, as if it understood quite well what sort of cruelty was being inflicted on it. Bumi could not believe it. How could someone treat such a marvelous animal so poorly? It was just awful, and bad business sense to boot!

Bumi cussed a stream of such well-executed profanity that it would have turned heads even in the scummiest of Omashu's bars. He damned whoever had done this to a thousand evils. Bumi would not leave these animals to die, slowly starved or poisoned by their reprehensible living conditions. It was wrong, this sort of thing, much more so than selling goods on the black market was wrong (if that was wrong at all). These animals were living, feeling things, and Bumi would save them. And then he would find the man responsible and ruin his life.

He took one last glance at the beast in the cage. It gazed at him hopelessly.

"Don't worry, big girl. I'm going to get you out of here."

--

Bumi returned the next night. He was exhausted, having not slept at all since his last visit. Seeing the animals again brought him new resolve, however, and he quickly set to work.

He had spent the entire previous day trying to work out how he was going to get all these creatures out of there. He could slip past the guards fairly well himself, but he doubted that, even incompetent as they were, they would readily miss the exodus of a conspicuous mammal the size of a small house. He had considered attempting to tunnel into the back of the cavern, but there was no spot where he could conceivably start digging without drawing attention to himself (no doubt it was intentionally so in order to avoid this very thing). So Bumi had decided to tunnel out. No one would hesitate to stop a boy from digging thirty feet into the floor of their building, but if he were to merely emerge from the floor at the head of a procession of exotic animals, would stopping him really be the first thing on their minds?

Bumi had come well equipped for his mission. Aside from his messy sketches of the layout above the caverns, he sported a thick strip of cloth over his mouth and nose, a pair of bolt cutters, a half dozen cloth bags, rope, and some assorted seeds and fruits. He fed all of the animals he could, scattering the food in through the cage bars. Those animals still living descended on it ravenously. The mother beast creature extended a massive hand in which Bumi placed a half dozen apples. She ate them slowly, masticating small pieces and pushing them into the mouths of her twin babies.

Bumi wiped his head and sized up the back wall. It was some sixty feet, he had guessed, to the pottery shop he was aiming for. He would attempt to emerge directly in front of it but at this point it was hard to guess how well it would work. At about mid-morning the guards would do a final check of each of the caverns before changing shifts, so he only had a few hours to do this. He sighed and started digging.

Bumi's earthbending-assisted fingers dug through the solid rock rather easier than any shovel could, but it was still hard going. The pile of soil in the ware cavern grew larger and larger as he pitched handfuls of pulverized stone into it. The stench of the animals and the exertion of his task began to make him feel ill. He continued nonetheless, and ever so slowly bored his way upwards at a shallow angle. Bumi had to shift the smaller cages out of the way from time to time to avoid burying them in the great pile of dirt he was leaving in his wake.

Several times Bumi had to take a break and would observe the animals more carefully. The large female creature, whom Bumi had decided to name Mipsie, still interested him the most. Mipsie appeared to have recognized that something important was going on and had stood, resting shakily on her great knuckles. Her twins whined cheerlessly but she remained silent, shifting her horned head to follow Bumi's movements across the room.

Bumi got back to work. The hours ticked by. With no sunlight, Bumi could not gauge the time and he began to worry. If the guards checked on this cell to find it half-filled with dirt with a half-complete tunnel dug into the back of it, they would no doubt be quite upset indeed.

Finally, though, after hours of backbreaking work, Bumi's aching fingers broke through the final few inches of his journey. His euphoria overtook his exhaustion as a bolt of dim light streamed in on him. He widened his little hole and stuck his head through. He had misjudged and landed a few feet east of where he wanted to be, inside the pottery shop instead of in front of it, but all in all it was a job well done. It was morning already, though. He would have to hurry. He earthbended a thin plug over his hole and slipped back down into the cavern.

Working swiftly, Bumi cut the bolts off of each cage. Birds screeched and twittered with excitement as they flew for the first time in months. Bumi stuck most of the smaller animals like the moray boa and the pangolillas into the cloth sacks, tied them together, and slung them over his right shoulder. The muskajou he positioned carefully on his left, grimacing a little as its claws sunk into his skin.

Last was Mipsie herself. As soon as the heavy lock that held her in thundered to the floor, she burst from the cage and threw herself at Bumi. Her long tongue slathered over his face with such forceful gratitude that he nearly dropped the animals he was carrying.

"You're welcome," he said, laughing. Mipsie stood obediently to his side and Bumi pondered briefly if she might have been a trained pet before being locked here.

The cavern door slid open. A guard stepped in and cried out in surprise.

"Time to go!" Bumi informed his animal companions and scampered up the tunnel with Mipsie in tow and scattering a handful of seeds as he went. The released birds descended aggressively on the dropped foodstuffs as before.

What the potter must have thought when a teenaged earthbender, a massive white ape, and a flock of birds materialized out of his shop floor, Bumi did not know. Regardless, the man simply watched in abject shock as Bumi waved the birds through the open door, sealed the tunnel, and then bolted from the shop.

Bumi ran down the street as fast as he could, Mipsie's thunderous footfalls the only thing he could hear over the sound of his laughter.

--

A/N: And there's chapter 7. I find this sixteen-year-old Bumi harder than both his younger and older forms because slipping into abstract silliness doesn't work quite as well. Do tell me your thoughts, if you have them.

An additional thing: I would like to thank Blooappall, who beta'd this chapter for me.

And a final thing: If you don't review, Mipsie will cry. That's cruelty to animals and I think there's quite enough of that in this chapter, don't you?


	8. VII: Bumi and the Fever

**Episode VII: Bumi and the Fever**

97 years ago (Bumi age 16), early summer.

--

Bumi snipped away at Mipsie's wet fur while she slept, cutting out knots and tangles months in forming. Immediately after their daring escape, Bumi had led the beast to the nearest manhole, earthbended it wide enough for them to pass, and guided her inside. Nobody had tried to stop them (no doubt having been afraid of being trampled by several thousand pounds of loping mammal) and, though Bumi was sure there would be witnesses aplenty, Omashu's labyrinthine sewer system was a fine place to lose one's pursuers.

They had bolted down the filthy wet tunnels, turning corners in an apparently random and inexplicably complicated route that Bumi had laid out the previous day. Bumi and Mipsie had woven their way through some of the most dangerous parts of the sewers (relying on experience and bulk, respectively, to keep from being swept away by the current). By the time they had emerged from another manhole in Lower Omashu they were out of breath and dripping with sewage, but Bumi had felt fairly sure they were at least temporarily safe.

They had run madly to their destination nonetheless. When one was stealing goods, one had to be cautious. When one was stealing animals large enough to swallow a man whole, one had to be more cautious still.

Bumi had thought long and hard the previous day about what he was going to do with Mipsie after he had released her, but had eventually come up with a solution he was quite proud of indeed. There was a large husbandry facility on the west side of town. Though it was in Lower Omashu (so it could be close to the gates, for convenience), it catered almost exclusively to the very wealthy. Merchants and barons and high-class folk of all sorts would pay to house their most prized mounts, usually thoroughbred ostrich-horses. Trained stablehands would brush their luxurious coats, shine their talons with expensive polish, feed them whatever peculiar diet their owners demanded (no matter how ridiculously opulent or unhealthy), and generally treat the beasts to accommodations far superior to those of the neighboring peasants.

It was perfect. Nobody had even raised an eyebrow (except, perhaps, in curiosity as to why they were coated in sewage) when Bumi had led Mipsie into the stables, nor when he had insisted on helping them care for her, nor even when he had asked that she be kept secret from any visitors. It was all in a day's work, apparently, and so long as Bumi's money was good, they were not going to complain.

So Bumi and two others undertook the colossal task of cleaning Mipsie. Her long fur was stained and clumped with all manner of unsavory material but though she was weak from exhaustion and malnourishment, it still required all three of them (and some tranquilizer-laced food) to separate the two infants from her chest. She nearly tore one of the worker's arms off at first, but calmed when she eventually realized they meant her offspring no harm.

The three beasts were washed in a tremendous stone pool, fed a meal of fruit and meat, and led to a roomy stable in which to rest. They were visibly relieved and as soon as Mipsie had reclaimed her babies, all three fell asleep amongst a pile of hay.

While she slept, Bumi and the two stable hands set to work dressing Mipsie's wounds and trimming her matted coat. Bumi sat on her massive flank with a pair of hand shears, feeling himself rise several feet with her every breath. Her hand was bandaged where she had lacerated it against the cage bars and her horns, cracked and decaying from disease, were filed down to their bases.

--

Bumi was dead on his feet as he stumbled through the streets. Hours of digging followed by a long run followed in turn by a few more hours of beast cleaning and, finally, another hour of handing two-dozen exotic pets our to local street children, all on top of two days without sleep, had left him exhausted and groggy. He felt woozy and unbalanced and had to concentrate to place each step. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Just a few more blocks and he would be on his roof (he had moved some months back to a different roof a few levels above his old one). The bright sunlight felt painful to his eyes and all Bumi wanted to do was sleep. He just had to get home. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

As Bumi staggered past the _pingnu _bar, however, a crowd caught his eyes. It was not rare to see throngs of people gathering to appreciate some unique street performer or perhaps cheer for a fight, but the crowd's mood was decidedly off. They were not clapping or braying with laughter, but rather exchanging subdued, fearful comments. A pair of guards arrived on the scene and the crowd parted to let them through.

His curiosity got the better of him and Bumi pushed his way through the mass of gawkers to see what the fuss was all about. He gasped.

A man dressed in a dirty Earth Army uniform was slumped against the side of the bar while one of the guards knelt to check his pulse. The fellow was quite plainly dead and the guard sadly shook his head to confirm as much. The dead man's hands were pale and dried blood darkened his padded undershirt. He had been dead for some hours, Bumi decided. He leaned in for a closer look. When one of the guards removed the helmet and Esto's broken head lolled back on its spine, Bumi cried out in surprise. He backed up in horror and guilt, pressing his way back through the crowd. An avalanche of pain muddied thoughts poured through his skull and his mouth felt dry. _No… No, no. It couldn't be…_

_He had gotten Esto killed… He had led an innocent man to his death._ _There was blood on his hands. _Bumi kept backing up until he struck a wall and fell against it, still shuddering in terror. He tried to deny it, tried to escape the realization, but his mind worked against him. _A person had been killed following Bumi's plans. It was his fault, all his fault. _He tried to justify it, look at it from a different angle. _It had been a good plan, right? Bumi wouldn't have sent Esto on anything he thought was dangerous, right?_ It was not working. Bumi could not escape the truth._ Someone had seen them. Someone knew, and had killed Esto. Bumi had killed Esto. Bumi was a murderer. What would happen to him?_

A distant crack sounded. It sounded like earth striking earth, like earthbenders fighting. A sickening revelation struck Bumi. Whoever had killed Esto had thrown him in front of the bar on purpose, as a warning or threat. They knew Esto had been there, and therefore they must have known that Bumi had been there with him. Bumi was in danger. Everyone close to Bumi was in danger. Another thunderous crack sounded. Bumi's eyes widened and he felt sicker still.

"Kihni…" he breathed.

--

Bumi cleared the few blocks to Kihni's shop in record time. At this point, he was not at all surprised to see the front half of it collapsed in on itself, having been torn asunder by an earthbender, nor a pair of men tossing bundles of fine fabrics into the dirty streets. Shouting and the sound of breaking objects came from its depths. Wasting no time to curse himself nor worry about what might await him, Bumi made for one of the gaping holes in the storefront, kicking stone rubble out of his path as he went.

One of the men took notice, dropped the goods he was befouling, and rounded on Bumi. He darted forward to grab Bumi's wrist, only to be rewarded with a similar maneuver to the one he had performed on Hun a few days prior. The man's armor provided little real protection and, had Bumi not been in such a thoroughly despairing mood, he would have cackled with glee at the heavy _whump _of stone against groin.

The man let out an anguished growl but, miraculously, remained standing. He swore loudly and drew a knife from his boot. Bumi scrambled to get through an opening in the debris. Almost there… The man brandished his dagger and swiped clumsily at Bumi, barely missing the boy's foot as he crawled into the destroyed shop. The man reached a hand through the crevasse into which Bumi had escaped.

Inside the shop, Bumi felt a strong grip grab his ankle. He punched the wall of collapsed stone and it came thundering down, crushing the man's outstretched arm along with it. Bumi ignored the pained cry.

The shop was a terrible mess. Racks of clothing had been torn down or collapsed and the stone bench formerly in the shop's back corner was cloven into pieces. Large holes in the ceiling let sunlight stream through, and the wooden beams that had previously lined the attic were splintered liberally about the room. Bumi could hear Kihni shouting in the back and ran to her aid.

He found her in the kitchen cornered by a short man in black and green. His long hair was tied in an elegant braid that lay against his back as he jabbed a sword threateningly at the old woman. A golden hyenavark was stitched into the back of his leather jerkin.

The man was laughing and jeering, taunting Kihni as he kept her at bay with the sharp tip of his sword. Occasionally he'd swing it into a nearby cabinet, or the table, or into the wicker chair in which Kihni often sat, leaving long, destructive gashes in Kihni's beloved home. She looked horrified. Bumi grabbed a large brick from a nearby pile of rubble, slapped the man's studded helmet to the side, and before he could turn around brought the brick quite forcefully onto the top of the man's skull. He went down without complaint.

Bumi stood, panting, over the man's still body. He dropped the brick and looked at Kihni. Her face only steadily softened as she recovered from shock and struggled to catch her breath.

"Bumi…" she said, concerned. The look on Bumi's face was one of such misery that at first she found it hard to reconcile. He did not go to her.

"I'm sorry," he croaked on the verge of tears.

--

Bumi pushed the man's unconscious form unceremoniously into the sewers, listening to it impact with a satisfying splash. In the sliver of sunlight that peeked down through the manhole, Bumi could barely make out a dark shape flowing downhill on the river of sludge. He replaced the cover, plunging the sewers into darkness.

His arms ached from dragging the man's heavy body and he felt sickly and light-headed. His mind struggled to piece itself back together while he fingered the notched gold piece he had taken from the man's pockets. It was an order from a high-ranking Consortium member, but the third notch was peculiar; he had never seen a coin like this before. He had a good guess, however, as to its translation.

What was he to do? The men had caught and killed Esto and, no doubt hoping to catch Bumi as well, had attacked Kihni's shop. The two he had left outside had been chased off by guards by the time he had emerged, but there was no telling what manner of damage they might have done before, nor what damage their companions might be doing at that very moment. If they had known of Bumi's connection with Kihni, they most certainly would know of Shou…

--

Nobody was home when Bumi finally launched his way through Shou's door, gasping and struggling to maintain his balance. He leaned on the doorframe for purchase and shouted Shou's name over and over, but no answer was forthcoming.

Bumi caught his breath, steeled himself, and released his iron grip on the doorframe. He promptly fell over. He rose shakily to his feet and staggered into the house, propping himself up on furniture as he went. He inspected every room but found nothing. No sign of any sort of confrontation, and yet no sign of Shou either. The one thing out of place was one of Shou's paintings, lying in tatters on the floor. Bumi had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Shou was gone. He had not been able to save him. Tears flowed from his eyes and Bumi slumped down on the floor. He fingered one of the pieces of torn canvas idly. All was lost.

_No, all was not lost._ Bumi shook his head to clear the fatigue. He had to think. Shou was not necessarily dead. He could have simply been out of the house, off meeting with some potential buyer. He had not seen Shou in two days; he had been preoccupied with rescuing the animals and had forgotten his promise to return. Bumi struggled to remember what deals they had in progress, tried to guess what Shou might have been up to that _didn't_ involve being tortured or lying dead in an alley somewhere. He couldn't think of anything.

He needed rest. He could not keep going on like this; he had to sleep. Even if Shou _was_ captured somewhere, Bumi could do nothing about it in this state. And then there was the matter of eluding any potential murderers that might still be after Bumi himself. He had to get somewhere to rest.

Bumi managed to stagger out of the house, his mind muddied. He closed the door behind him and earthbended a shelf of rock behind it, effectively bracing it shut. He wrote HIDE in imposing letters on the back of one of the painting fragments and slipped it into the doorjamb.

--

Bumi did not quite make it back to the stables, and instead collapsed heavily to the sandy street some forty feet away, unconscious.

--

There are many varieties of sleep and few of them are restful. There is, of course, the deep, dream-filled sleep that leaves its participants rejuvenated, if a little hesitant, when the time comes to awaken. This was not the manner of sleep Bumi engaged in now (nor even very frequently).

Bumi straddled the blurry line between delusional consciousness and haunting unsleep. His body and part of his mind screamed out for rest, pleaded with him to settle himself, but he could not. His obsessive brain was fixed in an endless loop, and though it had long since stopped offering anything of value, it insisted on churning out its meaningless conclusions over and over again. Each attempt his body made to wrest control and calm down was quickly disrupted as he riled back to his self-destructive mental activity.

His mind was abuzz with images. The usual culprits showed up in force; endless, uncontrolled imaginings of a simple problem that needed solving. Maybe a door that needed closing, for instance, or perhaps an impractical math problem. It would go like this: He would shut the door. It would reopen. He would shut the door again. It would reopen. He would shut the door more forcefully and lean on it this time, desperately willing it to be still. It would reopen. No matter how many times his mind closed the door, it would reopen. He did not know why he insisted on shutting the door. He would eventually escape the door and stumble into the math problem. He had five white, furry beasts, but only three stables. How might he arrange five into three? He would set to calculating. By the time he had figured out the numbers he wanted, however, he would find himself back at the door, beasts forgotten. He'd forget his numbers and resume his battle with the door for a while. What had he been doing? Ahh yes, the beasts and their pens. It was a vicious cycle, and one that Bumi as well used to.

Of course, it was worse when one was troubled already, and worse yet when one was also feeling the early effects of an animal-borne illness. A door that refused to stay closed was harmless enough, but when Esto's life came to depend on that door remaining shut it took on a more frightening quality. Guilt and fear gnawed at Bumi while he struggled to fall asleep or wake up. Horrific images assailed his mind. Who would die next? He would try to decide if he were actually asleep and merely dreaming or actually awake and really seeing what he thought he saw; in unsleep, the line between real and fantasy was terrifyingly insubstantial.

--

It took Bumi a very long time to realize he was awake. His frequent matches with unsleep had an irritating habit of arriving and leaving only gradually, so to ruin as much of his day as possible. Eventually, though, his mind started to operate again and could sort the images. This had not happened yet, and therefore this was impossible, and so on.

He felt terrible. A thin film of cold sweat clung to his forehead. Fluid sloshed about in cavities in his head he had not realized he possessed; it felt like a reservoir of mucus. A rubbery brick of tingling flesh pressed painfully against the back of his brain and eyes. He was still tired. Had he not slept? Why was he so tired? Bumi sat up and immediately regretted it.

Bumi blinked repeatedly, still trying to place himself in the world. It was dark and quiet, no doubt the middle of the night. He was seated next to a stone wall, having apparently been moved from where he had collapsed in the middle of the road. He checked his pockets. The coin was still there; he had not been robbed. Perhaps he had simply been in someone's way, or perhaps someone had pitied him and moved him out of the oppressive sun. Bumi pitied himself.

Seeing the stables in the distance, Bumi rose shakily to his feet and stumbled, zombie-like, towards them. He staggered inside, felt his way to Mipsie's cell, and collapsed on the nearest bale of hay, again to fight the unsleep.

--

Bumi flitted in and out of consciousness for an indeterminable length of time. Occasionally he'd awaken during a particularly gruesome coughing fit, drenched in sweat. His stomach would be churning spasmodically, demanding that he puke despite the many hours that had passed since his last meal. He would lean on the hand rail and try to oblige it for a bit, then return to his haunting, guilty dreams.

He was dimly aware of being picked up and placed somewhere warmer, but by whom and for what reason he did not have the means to discern. Occasionally voices would speak to him, but they felt distant and unimportant.

--

Bumi awoke to the sound of Shou's voice. This was nothing new, considering that Shou had been speaking to him, in a certain sense, for some time now. What was different, however, was that Bumi could understand the words.

"I am looking for a boy," Shou said to someone. Bumi listened more carefully.

"Teenaged, tall, long hair, green eyes. You seen him?"

"Yes! He is here. We have been worried about him. Are you his father?" Another voice, unrecognizable, responded. Bumi inhaled deeply. He blinked rapidly, shook his head a little. No swirling colors were forthcoming. He was not hallucinating.

"Guardian, anyway. What's wrong with him?" Shou asked, voice steadily becoming louder.

"He is very sick. Delusional, won't talk to anyone. We tried to get him to a healer but his beast won't let anyone near him."

"Let me see him." Bumi tried to rise and found it impossible. He grimaced and tried again. Again impossible. He took the opportunity to notice the gigantic arm that was clamped securely around his waist. It was quite sturdily attached to Mipsie's equally gigantic torso, against which he was propped. He heard a squeak to his left, turned to look, and found himself staring into the inquisitive face of one of the twins, clinging to its mother's stomach. It squeaked cheerfully. As she slept, Mipsie's broad chest expanded and contracted like a living pillow (albeit a lumpy pillow knotted with musculature).

Bumi reached down and tried to pry Mipsie's grip apart. Her salami sized fingers held fast. He tried again, working the front of his shirt carefully through her closed fist and would have escaped if she had not shifted in her sleep, recapturing him. Bumi's head rolled back against her in exasperation.

Bumi turned his head to watch as the door to Mipsie's cell opened, revealing a very worried looking Shou. The door swung closed behind him. There was the slightest surprised halt in Shou's gait as he saw Bumi's peculiar choice of beds, but he quickly recovered.

"Bumi," he asked gently, "are you alright?" Bumi met his eyes. He was immensely relieved to see Shou alive and well, but ashamed of himself for the having been so weak and frightened, at the mercy of his dreams for so long.

"Yes," Bumi croaked dishonestly, though it sounded broken and weak even to him. Shou didn't look fooled.

"Do you need to see a doctor?" he prodded.

"No."

They just stared at each other for a moment. Bumi felt Mipsie's hand slacken and shift, bumping him painfully in the stomach. The dull physical pain was the final proverbial straw when heaped upon Bumi's guilt and fears. The weight of recent days' trials pushed Bumi past his limit and, despite his best efforts, he began to cry.

"I'm sorry, Shou," Bumi bawled. "You were right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Shou looked astonished as Bumi slipped out of the beast's grip and stumbled towards him.

"For what? What happened?" he asked, thoroughly confused. He stood just fast enough to catch Bumi as the boy tripped into him.

_"I was wrong and somebody died!"_ Bumi roared into Shou's shoulder, body shuddering. _"I killed somebody and I could have killed you and Kihni!"_ His sobbing woke Mipsie, who whirled onto her feet in an instant. She regarded the intruder with a deep, throaty growl, head ducked low to the ground and left arm wrapped protectively around her offspring.

Shou guided Bumi onto the seat next to him. The boy was inconsolable.

"Tell me what happened," he ordered. Through much sniffling and tears Bumi told him the story; how he had convinced Esto to steal business from the Consortium, how he had seen Esto's battered body, how he had rushed to save his friends, and the frightful period afterwards. Shou listened to it all without comment.

Bumi finished his tale and stared dejectedly at the ground. His crying had subsided, somewhat, but he continued to moan and sob under his breath. Mipsie growled away in the background like an engine.

"Bumi…" Shou said. Bumi ignored him. "Bumi, that's _enough_!" he shouted, causing both Bumi and Mipsie to quiet in surprise. He grabbed Bumi's shoulders and forced the boy to look at him.

"This isn't like you, Bumi. This is stupid. Do you really think sitting here killing yourself is going to bring that man back?" Bumi hung his head in shame. He knew Shou was right, but wasn't particularly interested in hearing what he had to say.

"You put an innocent man in danger he did not understand and it cost him his life. That is a terrible thing to have happened, but did you kill this man?" Bumi shook his head no. "Did you believe that there was a chance he would have died?" Bumi shook his head again. "Would you have felt safe going in his place?" Bumi nodded.

"It was an accident, Bumi. Nothing will bring him back to life, but you must forgive yourself. You will never be the same person again. Whether you will be worse or better is up to you, though. Learn from your mistakes. Stop tempting fate. Stop gambling with peoples' lives, including your own. Choose to stand up against the injustice in the world, against wicked men like the Consortium. Do you understand me?"

Bumi nodded slowly. Shou hugged him.

"Alright. Let's get you cleaned up."

--

At Shou's insistence, Bumi jumped into the stone pool where he and the stablehands had washed Mipsie, clothes and all. The cold water felt extremely refreshing and Bumi swam a few lazy laps, cleaning the several days' worth of grime from his body.

He emerged feeling better than he had in a long time. The image of Esto's limp neck and skull flitted periodically through his mind, but he felt an immense psychological burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He also felt famished.

Shou took him to a nearby restaurant and bought him a bland meal, which he consumed with much gusto. They talked. Shou told him about how he had never been attacked (the ruined painting had been his own doing, he admitted, embarrassed) and how he had needed to break into his own house. He described how he had become worried about Bumi after not seeing him for a few days, and eventually found him only when an unexplainable bill from the stables was mailed to him. Bumi listened ashamedly, but Shou insisted over and over again that nothing bad had happened and all was forgiven. The mood at the table steadily brightened and, at Shou's request, Bumi set to describing what little he knew about Mipsie. Shou had never seen an animal like her either and the two of them speculated for a time about where she had come from. By the time they were done, Bumi had a broad smile on his face.

After their meal, Shou seemed to want to keep an eye on the boy to prevent him from immediately launching back into his hi-jinx.

"But Shoooouuuu…." Bumi whined, "I still haven't had a chance to play with Mipsie." Shou looked dubious.

"Really! I've been too sick!" Shou narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Alright…" he said at length, "you can go free… But only if you promise not to stay out tonight."

"Deal."

"You've missed classes, so you have studying to do. Where I can see you. At my house."

"Deal."

"Right before dinner."

"Right after dinner," Bumi countered. There was a pause as Shou no doubt tried to guess how much trouble Bumi could get in before dinner. He finally relented.

"Deal."

--

Bumi returned to the stables. He had been telling the truth; it really was the first time he'd had a chance to play with Mipsie without one of them feeling too sick. She tackled him enthusiastically as soon as he entered the room. Being back in her cell brought Bumi's uncomfortable memories back to the front of his mind, but he staved them off by playing fetch with a large bone one of the stablehands had provided. Each time he threw it, Mipsie would launch across the room, pin the bone against the ground and gnaw at it savagely for a few seconds, apparently convinced that it would dash off if it were not properly strangled, then hold it proudly aloft in her toothy maw. She would dance just out of Bumi's reach for a while until Bumi tricked her and stole the bone back, which he'd then throw again.

As they played, a new train of thought took root in Bumi's mind. Shou's words echoed loudly in his head.

Mipsie bounded victoriously towards him, her footsteps shaking the stone floor, and Bumi was convinced.

"Hey Mipsie…" he said conversationally. She slid to a stop almost immediately and stared at Bumi, head cocked to the side at an inquisitive angle. Two dark faces peeked from her belly fur with similar confused expressions.

"Any chance you want to pay the Consortium a visit?" Bumi asked. Mipsie and her twins simultaneously cocked their heads in the other direction.

"You heard Shou," Bumi reminded them, grinning. "We have to stand up against people like the Consortium." Their heads pitched back again.

"That's right," he confirmed. "I have a plan."

--

A/N: Another chapter! I believe this large episode (ie the 16 year old portion of this story) and indeed this entire story arc (ie Bumi's black market childhood) will be concluded in the next chapter. Stay tuned; the next chapter should be up in a few days.

Along the same vein, if you have any ideas/requests/etc for the story, don't hesitate to voice them. This story is ultimately episodic, and I could easily work in all sorts of side storylines.

I'm pretty sure this is my least favorite chapter so far, but I'm sick of messing with it. I don't usually insert this much drama into anything I do, so I'm treading on unfamiliar ground, so to speak. The musings on sleep are very much based on first hand experience, however, so if Bumi seems a little bit crazy, then I'm crazy too.

Finally, my obligatory threat to garner a few more reviews… Let's see… How about, "review or face the perils of unsleep"? Yeah, I guess that works. (If you are lucky enough not to know what unsleep is, take my word for it: this is a very serious threat)


	9. VIII: Bumi versus the Consortium

**Episode VIII: Bumi versus the Consortium**

97 years ago (Bumi age 16), early summer.

--

Bumi crept forward, careful not to make a sound. He inserted his foot only very slowly into the sewer water, barely disturbing the surface. He still felt a little congested, but considering the usual range of smells he had to deal with in the sewers, maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

He thought he heard a sound and tensed to listen. Nothing. Just water trickling down the sewers to pour into the great chasm that surrounded the city. He had been sneaking his way down this tunnel in the pitch darkness for minutes before a faint glow had appeared in the distance. He was almost to the end. Hopefully his target would still be there.

The farther he traveled, the stronger the flow of water became as smaller conduits sluiced their contents into the main lines. Though the incline had (thankfully) shallowed, the floor was slippery and Bumi had had to resort to earthbending footholds for himself. It was slow going. A ray of sunlight pierced the darkness and Bumi could make out the slits in the great grate that capped the sewage pipe. A large pile of refuse had accumulated just before it, partly damming the water's way.

Bumi heard a groan. He grinned victoriously and carefully picked his way up to the grate. Once there, he leaned nonchalantly to one side, leaning on the grate's rim and idly inspecting his hands. Only at length did he regard the refuse pile's occupant.

"Funny place to sit," he observed. The man's head and arms rested on top of the accumulated garbage and vegetable manner, but his body was buried beneath a powerful stream of dirty water. Pentapi clung to his exposed flesh, happily eating away at the grime on his skin.

"Help me…" the man asked weakly. Bumi ignored him and continued to feign indifference.

"Been to any tailor shops recently?" he asked. The man twitched a bit in surprise (or perhaps he had been struck by some floating debris; Bumi hadn't been watching.)

"Yeah," Bumi continued, "I happen to know a really good one in Lower Omashu. Run by a kind old lady. A bit cranky, but wouldn't hurt a junefly. Too bad it was destroyed a few days ago." The man frowned in resignation and twisted his head as much as he could to face Bumi.

"I been there," he admitted.

"Thought so, considering that was where I bashed your head in."

"So what, now you're here to finish me off?" In answer, Bumi gently removed one of the pentapi from the man's chin and then punched him as hard as he could muster. The man yelped a bit, but was otherwise unphased.

"Maybe. First you're going to give me some information." The man grimaced. The price of being a snitch in the Consortium was well known.

"First… What is this?" Bumi held the strange gold coin before the man's nose.

"It's a gold piece." Bumi struck him again.

"I _know_ that, and don't bother telling me the notches are a code because I know that too. What is _this_?" He tapped the third notch, the particular one he could not decipher. The man's face fell a bit more.

"It means destroy. It's the order to assassinate," he admitted, his voice barely audible over the water. He flinched in preparation for another hit. Bumi nodded knowingly and regarded the coin. The man relaxed. Bumi hit him.

"So this coin gave you the orders to kill the corporal of the eighth unit of the fourth battalion of the second division of the Earth Army and a tall boy often seen at Kihni's tailor shop?" He asked angrily, turning the coin as he translated the marks.

"Yes." Bumi growled and hit him several more times, maintaining an angry frown to hide his sadness.

"Who are you?" he demanded after he had finished. The man sputtered, spitting out a mouthful of bloody water.

"Cimdo. I am captain of the Consortium's enforcers."

"And who issued this order?" he asked, flashing the coin again.

"Xiej, at the request of the Baron." Bumi nodded.

"Now tell me everything you know about Xiej's personal cache." The man looked frightened. Bumi considered striking him again, but restrained himself while the man decided. Sighing exaggeratedly, he made as if to leave.

"No, no!" The man broke. "Xiej's cache is in a small cavern in the chasm wall, just a little below us. Don't leave me here to die!" Bumi smiled.

"How do you get to it?"

"A strong earthbender pulls a path out from the chasm. They will usually enter from a tunnel in the floor of one of the buildings next to the westernmost guard tower."

"Guards?"

"There are two guards disguised near the tower."

"None in the chamber itself?

"No. They'd have to get in and out too often. It would arouse too much suspicion." Bumi chuckled aloud. He leaned on the wall and thought about it. No wonder he had never heard where Xiej kept his money. It wasn't even technically in Omashu, but under it! No matter. It would still fit comfortably into his plans.

"Please, kid," the man pleaded. Satisfied, Bumi clapped his hands together.

"Let's get you to jail, shall we?"

--

It was two days before Bumi made his next move. He had been distracted by his studies, earthbending lessons, and most of all Shou himself. He had taken it all in stride, however. The longer he prepared, the more devastating his attacks would be when he finally got around to them. He had been planning it all out; he knew what he had to do.

His plan would be dangerous, of course. Esto's death had attested to that. Even so, Bumi felt a savage need for revenge whenever he thought of the slain soldier. Esto had not been a friend of his, really, but he had been an innocent man, killed by the 'varks. He would be avenged.

Bumi had decided that he had in fact declared war on the entire Consortium, rather than only on Esto's specific killers. He was newly convinced that it was a dangerous, arrogant organization, unfit for existence. The same went for anybody involved in it. All the arguments and morals that Bumi had turned a deaf ear to in the past resurfaced in full force. The Consortium and its members controlled a sickeningly great portion of the city's economy; anyone enemies with them would end up bankrupt or worse. Practices that Bumi had long benefited from (and indeed, many he had himself employed) suddenly struck him as fundamentally, infuriatingly wrong. The Consortium had to be put down, and soon. Bumi would chop off its head and send the body floundering away in the streets.

It wouldn't be easy, though. While he could probably tip off the authorities as to Xiej's location and try to get him arrested, Xiej was notoriously slippery and hard to corner. Many Undermarket meetings had ended abruptly when a dozen royal guards burst in, only to have the Consortium leadership slip out of the building at the last minute. Xiej was an arrogant, evil jerk leading an arrogant, evil group of jerks, but he certainly wasn't stupid. He was always in control of the situation. Bumi would just have to take that control from him, put him in a place where he could not escape. Bumi knew what to do. The first step was tonight.

It was dark outside when Bumi returned to the grate against which he had found Cimdo, and darker still inside the sewer. Ever since he had escorted the injured man to jail, he had been certain that this would be his base of operations. For two days he had tossed supplies he might need into the sewers. (Never much at once; that would be suspicious). He arrived now and found, as he had hoped, everything he had thrown in heaped up against the grate in a neat little pile, ready for use. There were head-sized boulders (you never knew when you might need a ready supply of earth), several torches and matches wrapped in waterproof oilskins, a sturdy knife, rope, and a handsaw. When combined with the cloth bag of a few dozen un-notched gold coins that Bumi had brought along with him, it made up quite an arsenal.

Bumi picked up one of the boulders he had brought along and earthbended it forcefully into the grate. There was a great reverberating boom, but the grate did not budge. He frowned and tried again, harder this time. Again, the rock slammed into the gate but, aside from scuffing the metal a bit, made no real impression. Bumi growled and tried again with a different boulder. No luck. He simply could not get the rock moving fast enough. He grimaced in disappointment, pulled up the legs of his pants and waded into the waist-deep water.

He found rather little success in simply pulling on the grate with his arms. Though it did rotate the slightest bit, beyond that it refused to budge. Eventually he had to resort to trickery. He piled as much debris as he could in front of the grate, preventing the water from passing. The water level rose quickly and Bumi was forced to hold his breath as the entire pipe filled. In the deep green murkiness he shouldered the grate as hard as he could and, after a few fearful seconds, it burst outward like a cork gun. Bumi and his supplies were poured onto the shallow shelf of rock within a powerful torrent of water.

Bumi sputtered and grabbed as much of his supplies as he could, stacking them to the side so they were not washed into the chasm by the water. He shook his head to dry his long hair. He stood, quite pleased with himself, and regarded the endless stone walls of the chasm. Far above him he could just make out the keel of rock that was Omashu's single bridge against the starry sky. It was nearly pitch black so far beneath the ground, and Bumi wondered idly if it was true what they said about falling in the dark. He decided he'd rather not try it and managed to light one of his torches.

It was time to get to work. Cimdo had said Xiej kept his riches in a small cavern somewhere beneath this drainpipe. Bumi could not see any evidence of such a place through the dim sphere of light his torch released. He stomped his foot on the ground a few times, feeling for vibrations, but all he could feel was the water rushing through the nearby sewers. _Very clever, Xiej._

Eventually Bumi decided he'd simply have to feel it out the old fashioned way. He tied one end of the rope around his waist and then earthbended a spike out of the ground on which to hook the other end. He tested the rope's strength with a sturdy pull, carefully clambered over the cliff face, bracing his feet against the vertical stone, took a few deep breaths, steeled himself, and then steadily released the rope.

--

It took Bumi a half an hour of feeling around, suspended hundreds of feet above the ground in the darkness, to find what he was looking for. He had just started vowing revenge on Cimdo when his fingers had hooked the edge of a narrow door cut into the chasm walls. It was a bit east of the drainpipe, requiring that Bumi use earthbending to dig his fingers and toes into the wall and climb horizontally, but it was definitely there and definitely a cavern. The euphoria at seeing the first step of a plan going well was entirely worth the several near-death experiences he had already managed to meet. Bumi laughed aloud as he scurried back up his rope, grabbed his supplies, and returned to the cavern opening with them awkwardly clasped in his chin, armpits, and wherever else they would fit.

After depositing his supplies on the shallow shelf in front of the door, Bumi removed the rope from his waist and tied it securely to another newly-earthbended spike before entering. He would not want to get stranded in here.

He could not hear anyone within, but he still proceeded carefully, opting to leave his torches behind at first. He crept through the darkness with the utmost stealth, ears straining to hear anyone that might be awaiting him. The thunderous movement of sewer water was less apparent here, and Bumi could feel the cavern's shape pretty well. It was much like the ware-caverns he had met before, but the floor felt… fuzzy, somehow. Regardless, Bumi soon felt certain he was alone, and fetched a torch.

The fuzzy floor, as it turned out, was only one of the expensive furnishings in Xiej's personal ware-cavern. It was carpeted and paneled, every bit as opulent as the richest houses in Omashu. Bumi found torch-holders in the walls and set one of his up at each end of the room. Their flickering light danced across all manner of finery. There was a set of dueling swords hanging crossed over a dormant fire pit. A line of rare animal heads was mounted against the back wall (including, Bumi noticed with a growl, a former member of Mipsie's species). There was a large, comfortable bed (_very _comfortable, in fact. Bumi tried it) and other expensive furniture. Piles of gold, ivory, and assorted baubles lied on nearly every surface. Lying casually atop the marble-countered mini bar was a scepter Bumi immediately recognized as the one stolen from the king's throne room a few years back. A large chair, much like the one in which Xiej had been sitting the day Bumi had first met him, served as the room's centerpiece. It was huge, with beautifully carved icons throughout (and, as before, a pair of golden hyenavark heads set into the armrests). Bumi guessed the chair had at least two hundred pounds of gold stuck to it.

The cavern was clearly more of a hideout than an actual warehouse. No doubt Xiej would retreat here whenever the authorities embarked on another massive search for him up in Omashu. Sitting on the expensive chair, Bumi had to admit that Xiej had style.

Bumi explored the room for a while and found all manner of lovely embellishments to his plan just waiting for him. There was an orderly pile of documents written in Xiej's own hand and just loaded with incriminating evidence. There was also, as aforementioned, the king's missing scepter. Neither of these things, however, compared to the dumbwaiter. Bumi could not but help but bursting into evil laughter when he saw it. It was a tall, narrow shaft cut in the rock, no doubt going all the way up to Omashu. Bumi suspected that Xiej used it to send orders and receive food while he hid in his luxurious cave. No matter. What _Bumi_ would use it for was far worse.

Bumi eventually finalized his plan of action. This cave was a perfect place to capture Xiej, if only the man could be convinced to come willingly. The Consortium leader was not stupid and would no doubt sense a trap. Bumi would just have to trick him into falling into it anyway. Bumi took a pen and some of his paper, leaned improperly on Xiej's chair, and penned a harsh letter.

_Xiej,_

I must say I admire your style. The décor here is just lovely. If I'm not mistaken, the paneling is imported mahogany from the Fire Nation, isn't it? Either way, it's lovely. I think I should like to live here. Please do not bother coming down here any time soon, as I will be hosting company. By invitation only, I'm afraid. Thank you for understanding.

_Your friend,_

Bumi had to think about how he should sign it. Though he had mostly tried to keep his head down in the Undermarket, no doubt someone would recognize his actual name. He would not want a repeat of the Esto incident. Bumi thought for a moment, then smiled.

Your friend, 

_Esto_

Yes… That worked. It had a poetic sort of justice to it, didn't it? Esto would have been proud to take down one more enemy for the Earth Kingdom. Now, Bumi needed to give the letter a little weight… He cackled with delight and added a postscript.

PS: I don't much care for hyenavarks, so you can have these back.

Grinning evilly, Bumi fetched his hacksaw.

--

Bumi's note had, as far as he could tell, worked perfectly. He had put it in an envelope, signed it showily with Esto's name, and slipped it, attached to it a coin notched with orders to deliver it to Xiej, under an unsuspecting merchant's door. No doubt the poor fellow had been scared to death, but he would not have refused a surprise assignment from the Consortium on which his good fortune depended.

Bumi was careful not to overstep his boundaries and had not tried to seek out Xiej and gauge his reaction. He had instead loitered about the base of the western guard tower, watching for clues. Homeless refugees from wartorn villages were set up in a long line, propped against Omashu's great wall on whatever blankets they had managed to bring with them. Many had little wooden shacks, barely big enough for one person to lie down in. Across the street, dozens of filthy people gambled boisterously over games of throwing tiles. Bumi had rubbed a little dirt in his hair (on top of the dirt that was already in it) and had sat down amongst the squatters, perfectly camouflaged. It hadn't taken him long to notice the five or six disguised Consortium agents doing the same. Cimdo had said two. Guard had tripled. Xiej was worried. Bumi snickered, but stayed in place. He plotted and watched, watched and plotted.

Eventually inspiration struck him. He sought out the biggest shack he could find, a pathetic little box of a room made of planks of wood leaned against the wall, and bought it from the family living within for eight gold pieces. They could hardly contain their surprise and gratitude at Bumi's amazing generosity and tried to invite him to dinner, but Bumi refused in no uncertain terms and gave them another gold piece to get out of his new house. He climbed within and peered out through an opening in the corner. The disguised guards were still there, but none appeared to have taken any notice of him. Hopefully the thankful family would get out quickly enough to avoid suspicion.

Bumi set to digging. The shack was leaned directly up against Omashu's wall, thirty-odd feet of solid stone between him and the outside, and hid him quite effectively while he worked. Hopefully the shack would remain standing; Bumi wouldn't want any guards to notice his impromptu customization of Omashu's defenses. It was risky, but Bumi had a feeling he was going to need another path into Xiej's hideout. If he dug far enough, he would emerge on the chasm wall, a mere hundred feet or so above it. That would be three secret ways in: climbing down from the sewer, climbing down the dumbwaiter shaft (which he would set up tonight), and climbing down from this tunnel. Bumi hoped that would be enough.

--

That night, Bumi returned to the sewer drain, again to dig. Truth be told, he was getting tired of digging through solid stone. He had come prepared, however, his hands tightly wrapped in protective cloth. Whether it would stop him breaking nails he did not know, but at the very least it dulled the pain of putting pressure on his blisters.

The dumbwaiter shaft extended vertically from Xiej's hideout to one of the buildings in Lower Omashu, which meant it had to pass fairly near the sewer line. Bumi cracked his knuckles and set to work.

After much trial and error, he managed to work one of the curved metal panels that supported the sewer pipe out of the ceiling. He set it down and began to burrow, tossing handfuls of dirt into the rushing water to wash harmlessly into the chasm. He made slow progress, heading in an eastward direction and taking care not to dig below the water line, lest his tunnel fill up and he drown. That would come later. He pounded on the rock frequently, trying to sense the shaft's location. The rumble of the sewer was distracting, but he eventually felt something and headed for it.

His hands fell through the rock into sweet open space. Bumi grinned ear to ear. He widened the hole, carefully scooping dirt back so it would not fall down the shaft and betray his presence. He had found it. A narrow cut through the stone, not two feet across, but extending into darkness above and below. A pair of ropes against one end betrayed the presence of the pulley system that ran the dumbwaiter. Bumi chuckled quietly, gauging the echo. Xiej was going to lose everything, and all because he needed room service. What a pingnu.

--

Bumi inched his way down the shaft. Hands and feet braced against its sides, he ever so slowly descended, praying that he wouldn't meet the dumbwaiter itself. He only moved a few inches at a time, carefully splaying his limbs out to keep under control. It was all thrillingly dramatic, rather like some of the 'missions' he used to act out with Aang and Kuzon, and Bumi could not help but quietly hum some thrilling theme music through the torch he gripped in his teeth.

Except for a frightening slip in which he had lost purchase on the sides and fallen ten or fifteen feet before he could stop himself, he reached the bottom without incident. It was pitch black. Turning himself upside down, he dug his toes into the stone shaft and quietly peeked into the chamber. None of the torches were lit and everything was quiet. He slammed a fist into the wall and felt the vibrations, in case someone was waiting in the darkness. It was difficult to say because of the carpeting, and he did it several more times before he felt safe. He slid out of the dumbwaiter and lit his torch.

A brief inspection of the room verified that he was alone. The only change, in fact, was that the room's entrance had been sealed shut by an earthbender. No doubt Xiej had assumed the secret path near the tower was the only way into his hideout and had merely tripled the guard complement, hoping to catch the intruder's return.

Bumi perused Xiej's collection of riches for the most memorable, unique pieces to steal. He was tempted to send Xiej half of the king's pilfered scepter, but as much as he enjoyed the idea of desecrating an heirloom of King Ouxi's family, it was worth more to him as evidence against Xiej. He eventually settled on an ivory goblet inlaid with emeralds, a strip torn from an expensive oil painting, and a handful of lovely rings for himself. He tried on the rings; they looked quite lovely in the flickering torchlight.

Satisfied, he composed another letter (just as abrasively condescending as the first), stuffed it and the torn painting in an envelope, tossed his collected swag in a sack, extinguished his torch, and shimmied back up the dumbwaiter shaft.

--

Bumi found it harder this time to resist trying to find Xiej and see just how angry his vandalism was making the Consortium leader. He had dropped the second note off early that morning. It had been delivered, and if the ridiculous amount of disguised Consortium members hovering around the western guard tower was any indication, Xiej was quite angry indeed.

Bumi fingered the stolen rings in his pocket as he reentered his newly acquired shack. He had bored roughly halfway through the wall the first day and then covered the hole before leaving to eat dinner with Shou. It was harder work than any of his other recent tunnels, because not only was the rock almost imperviously hard, but also he had nowhere to toss what he excavated. A huge pile of dirt accumulating outside of a simple wooden shack would most certainly draw suspicion, so he was forced to make do with leaving the tunnel mostly full of loose dirt, compacting it into the surrounding walls when necessary. It was filthy, claustrophobic work.

Two hours later, Bumi broke through to the other side, emerging right out of the precipitous chasm wall above a several-hundred-foot drop. After verifying that he was quite out of the bridge guards' sight, he backed up and shoveled all of the excess dirt out of the tunnel's far end, sending it hurtling down the chasm. He enlarged the tunnel until it was easily wide enough to stand in, plugged the end with a thin cap of rock, and, clapping his hands in finality, sat down in his shack. He decided to take a nap for good measure.

Sleep had been difficult lately. While he was arguably past his illness, his usual insomnia continued to plague him, even worse than normal. After getting over his shame at being seen crying, Bumi had leapt on Shou's explanations. They pretty much offered a complete exoneration from blame, providing Bumi stood up to the Consortium. It was an easy way out, and Bumi had taken it without hesitation. He should be guilt-free. Why, then, did guilty dreams continue to assail him for his part in Esto's death? It didn't seem fair. He was setting things right. If it wasn't going to follow the rules, Karma could go jump off of a cliff.

--

That night, Bumi again slinked his way down the dumbwaiter shaft. He did not bother bringing a torch, nor humming a thrilling tune, what with the dim glow he could see at the bottom. Somebody was in there. Bumi was painstakingly quiet as he neared the last fraction of his descent. He could just make out muffled speech above the thunderous pounding of his heart. He steeled himself for what he might see, hoping dearly that he could predict Xiej as well as he thought he could. He turned upside down again, dug his toes into the indentations he had left the previous night, and ever so quietly peeked through the shaft's wooden doors.

Through the thin opening he had prepared on his last trip, Bumi could see a half dozen people standing about. Consortium mercenaries, all wickedly armed and armored, stood at lazy attention against the walls, bickering about their jobs. Bumi suspected they had been ordered not to sit on any of the furniture, though a few did anyway. One fellow had clearly raided the hideout's alcohol stores, no doubt planning to blame the theft on their mysterious foe. Another was leaned against the boulder that sealed the room enjoying some of Xiej's expensive tobacco.

Bumi strained his neck as far as it would go, but no matter how many times he scanned the room, he could not see Xiej himself. Perfect. Brainless hired help and a cowardly, predictable leader. Bumi crawled back up the shaft, leaving none of the guards any the wiser.

--

Back up in the sewer drain, Bumi piled the boulders he had stored there against the since-reattached grate. Just as it had a few days prior, the water level surged imposingly upwards as the blocked pipe filled. Waist deep in the fast flowing sewage, Bumi could hear the metal of the grate creaking in protest under the water pressure. He had braced the grate from the other side with sturdy pillars of rock. Hopefully they would hold.

Bumi stuck the last boulder in place, plugging up the final remaining hole, then promptly turned to run. The slope was slippery and a powerful stream of water threatened to knock him over, but he steadied himself as best he could and slowly climbed upstream. He stopped and turned to look when he had made it a safe distance away. The sewage was pooling in the bottom of the pipe, its surface spinning in a turbulent vortex. Bumi could see bubbles pouring outwards as the water was forced down his tunnel into the dumbwaiter shaft. Thousands and thousands of gallons of dirty, stinking water were about to trickle into Xiej's hideout. Bumi wished he could watch it all unfold.

He laughed again and plodded onwards.

--

There were two sealed letters in the satchel Bumi had left in Mipsie's stable. They read as follows:

_Xiej,_

I grow tired of your shenanigans. It has been some three days since I claimed your hidden suite from you, and yet you continue to hassle me with your minions. Surely you don't need me to explain the concept of ownership to you?

Unfortunately, in order to expunge your most recent lackeys from my property, I was forced to rather damage it. It has put me in quite a foul mood with your behavior. We must settle this. I challenge you to a duel! Unless you are too much the coward, we shall decide the room's fate today, at midday! I demand satisfaction!

Esto

(Attached was a shard of the ivory goblet)

Advisor Kee,

Ever hear of a Xiej? I found one trapped in a hidden cave beneath the westernmost guard tower. It's quite a sight… Perhaps you and some of the Earth Army would like to see it this afternoon?

Of course, you must be quiet when viewing a Xiej, lest the rest of his pack notice he's gone.

Any other animal you find in there is a coincidence. She's not dangerous.

Bumi

--

In the cover of the inky darkness, Bumi snuck back into the stables. He could hear Mipsie shuffle around ponderously as he dug his satchel out of the pile of hay in which he had buried it. Mipsie let out a soft, high pitch whine.

"Easy girl," Bumi said, patting the furry tree trunk that was her arm, "Today's the day. You and me are gonna go pay Xiej a visit." Mipsie quieted, apparently grasping the situation's delicacy. Bumi rifled through his bag's contents one last time, ensuring everything was there. He nodded with finality to no one in particular. It was now or never.

"Let's go."

--

The two of them snuck out of the stables, Bumi shutting the large door behind them. Bumi was himself a practiced nighttime troublemaker and could pad along without a sound. When she tried, however, Mipsie too could move with a stealth that belied her great physical might. The two of them were mere shadows as they picked their way through the darkened streets, ducking into the shadows that hung between buildings when the rare passerby passed by.

On their way to his concealed tunnel through the wall, Bumi stopped to deliver his two letters. Hopefully Xiej and Kee would receive them quickly enough and be ready and willing to play their parts in Bumi's little game. A million thoughts coursed through Bumi's head. The plan's success or failure depended, ultimately, on how well he could mess with people. He had succeeded in predicting Xiej's moves so far, but what if he was wrong this time? Bumi was behaving riskily by promising to be at the hidden room at a particular time. What if Xiej simply sent a miniature army to apprehend him? Xiej was arrogant; hopefully he was too arrogant to back down from Bumi's challenge. Any other factors Bumi would have to deal with when he met them.

Once they reached the guard tower, Bumi pushed Mipsie into a narrow alley, crowded with trash.

"Stay here" he whispered harshly. Mipsie whined quietly but stayed in place, leaning down on her side and cradling her twins.

Though most of Omashu's residents had long since gone to bed, the crowded refugee sector still clung to activity. From this distance, Bumi could make out the two Earth Army guards posted at the tower's base, some fifty feet beyond his shack. Most of the refugees appeared to be asleep, curled up amongst the bundles like a crowded colony of narwalrus. A dozen or so were still gambling, however, huddled around throwing tile games and cheering with subdued aggressiveness. Bumi would need a distraction to sneak Mipsie by all these people unnoticed. He decided the gamblers would be his best bet.

Bumi squeezed his way into the ring of onlookers. Two grubby people were sitting cross-legged in the sand, alternately tossing little stone tiles across the board. Each tile bore a symbol which described how it could be played, what sort of points were gained by landing it on another tile of a given type, and so on. Bumi feigned interest for a while, outwardly keeping his focus on the game (he decided to root for the fat guy) but secretly seeking some way to turn these peoples' enthusiasm to his advantage.

It did not take him long to understand the rules to the game. Tiles moved about the arena frequently, being added or removed from play according to the precise arrangement of the pieces on the board. Discarded tiles were stacked neatly to either side. Bumi began to formulate an idea.

A chorus of roars ripped from the crowd's throats as the thin man was forced to discard a particularly valuable piece (the tile with one earth kingdom sigil inscribed into another). They brayed mockingly and/or consolingly (depending on which player they had wagered) until one of the guards shouted at them to quiet. As the disappointed man placed the tile atop his discard pile, Bumi took his chance and, with an abrupt twist of his ankle, sent the piece flipping back into the sleeve of the man's robes. Bumi grinned, immensely glad that he had spent so much time practicing silly, precise earthbending tricks like his earth puppets.

A turn or so later, as the thin man reached out to place a new tile, Bumi flipped the hidden piece back out of his sleeve and onto the board. It was all of four seconds before one of the hawk eyed onlookers noticed and, without preamble, forcefully presented the sole of his foot into the man's face. The entire group instantly erupted into a shouting match and then to an all out brawl. Bumi threw in a few insults of his own and sidled away.

Bumi ran back to Mipsie as fast as he could. The guards had moved in to break up the fight; they had to be quick. Mipsie rose to the challenge and galloped enthusiastically after him, rushing along the long line of sleeping refugees. Bumi heard a sudden cry of pain and surprise as Mipsie stepped on a sleeping man's foot. He hurtled into the shack and opened his tunnel even as the tumult outside worsened. Mipsie was distressed by the noise and whined, swinging her head about in cautious worry. She plowed into the fragile shack, which promptly collapsed. Bumi waved her into the tunnel, leapt in himself, and sealed the end.

Panting heavily, Bumi pressed an ear against the thin stone barrier and listened. People were shouting; they had been seen. Bumi could hear frightened exclamations about white demons amongst the enflamed gambling argument. After a few minutes passed without anyone presenting any solid explanation for where the 'white demon' went, however, Bumi calmed.

"Close one," he told Mipsie, wiping his brow. Mipsie had no comment.

--

The two of them descended the precipitous cliff face with utmost caution. Mipsie was, as it turned out, a fantastic climber, and Bumi's earthbended handholds were hardly necessary. She followed him down without hesitation, her thick knuckles gripping the stone wall. Bumi thanked fate for providing him with an animal companion with hands instead of, say, fins. They made a brief stop on the ledge outside the sewer drain so Bumi could earthbend the plug away and relieve the pressure. He could hardly duel Xiej underwater.

A steady stream of dirty water was dripping out of the door of Xiej's hideout. Bumi and Mipsie climbed inside and found it thankfully empty. There were no bodies and the uppermost extent of filth on the walls was only at about waist level, so presumably the mercenaries had worked together and managed to shift the boulder out of the door before the room filled and they drowned. None of them were earthbenders or it wouldn't have taken so long, so presumably they had either promptly fallen to their doom or had managed to message a Consortium earthbender up in Omashu to rescue them. Despite his anger at them, Bumi hoped for the latter.

The room was absolutely ruined. The carpet was sodden and stained and squished under Bumi's feet. The delicate, imported wood paneling and furniture were swollen with water and practically rotting off the walls already. Filth and garbage lied in piles intermixed with fantastic gold. Bumi herded Mipsie into the very back of the room, ripped the dry awning from the bed, and fashioned it into an impromptu blanket for her. Grateful to get out of the sludge and rest, Mipsie stretched out and fell asleep, occluded by shadows. Bumi had to rub the sleep out of his own eyes. He had one final preparation.

Bumi tied himself the door and climbed over the ledge again. He felt confident that Xiej would be willing to duel, but the tricky Consortium leader would have to bring backup. For all Xiej's wiles, he wasn't an earthbender, and would need a talented one with him to summon the narrow path that was the usual way into his hideout. Regardless of what happened with Xiej, Bumi would have others to dispatch, or they'd simply let their leader out and all of Bumi's plans would be for nothing.

Bumi could feel a weakness in the rock, a very even crease in the otherwise unbreakable stone face, that betrayed the hidden path's presence. It curved evenly up towards Omashu, stopping somewhere near the base of the nearest tower, where the Consortium's hidden entrance no doubt lied. Creating such a path took a greater than average earthbender, someone who somehow succeeded where Bumi could not. Bumi had developed a number of disgruntled theories as to why he was not strong enough to do this, but they did little to improve his situation. Regardless of reason, he was not strong enough. Despite everything Gar had insisted, tricky halfassery was the solution once again. Bumi bored a series of concealed, arm-sized holes in the wall under the path.

He returned to the hideout, plopped in Xiej's soggy throne, and waited.

--

The sun had risen high enough to angle a weak glow into the room before Bumi was shaken awake by the rumble of the path being pulled from the chasm walls. His heart beat furiously in his chest and he rubbed his face, cursing himself for having fallen asleep in the first place. Mipsie grumbled fearfully. Bumi shushed her into silence and slipped into the back of the room, next to the dumbwaiter doors. He did not want to have to use it (for not only was it slippery with grime, but no doubt the Consortium had figured out his secret route by this point and would send someone to intercept him in the sewers) but he could hear the sound of several pairs of booted feet trudging towards him. If Xiej was not among them, he could be in very real danger.

Bumi and Mipsie hid in the inky darkness, listening to the footsteps approach. Even Mipsie's twins, still clutching her torso, had fallen silent. A person stepped into the doorway, casting a long shadow into the room. The figure was large and armored; not Xiej.

"Hello?" the man called in a voice too rough to be Xiej's, clearly frightened. Bumi quietly spread the dumbwaiter doors, preparing to climb to safety.

A second, smaller man stepped into the light.

"Show yourself, Esto!" he snarled condescendingly. Bumi grinned. He would recognize that voice anywhere. The dim light scattered off of his long, black hair and glinted through the golden embroidery of the robe Kihni had sewn three years ago. After an emboldening breath, Bumi called out in the deepest voice he could muster.

"I am here, Xiej!"

"Kill him," Xiej growled. The armored man stepped into the darkness without hesitation and was quickly joined by two others from outside. They fanned out and stalked forward, feeling their way along.

"What is the matter, Xiej?" Bumi asked, concealing his worry. The three mercenaries immediately tracked onto his voice and started heading his way, but Bumi ignored them. "Have you forgotten that, in formal duels, lackeys are not typically permitted? Are you too much the coward to do this properly?" One of the mercenaries was mere feet away and Bumi's pulse was pounding anxiously. Xiej was peering in the direction of Bumi's voice.

"I am no coward, Esto. Why do you not show yourself? Hiding is also not typically part of the dueling process." The mercenaries slowed their pace. Good. Bumi laughed pleasantly at Xiej.

"Too true, too true. We are both a little rusty, it seems." He paused, looking up at the weapons still crossed on the wall. "It appears your dueling swords were undamaged," he observed, "You call off your goons and I will come into the light and we can settle this properly."

Xiej appeared to be thinking. Bumi and the mercenaries looked at him expectantly. Bumi tried to make his silence sound confident, but kept one hand on the dumbwaiter door nonetheless. After what felt like an eternity, Xiej nodded and gestured with his fingers. The mercenaries returned to his side like trained muledogs. They stood imposingly behind him, quite thoroughly blocking the exit.

"Show yourself, then," Xiej commanded.

Bumi took another deep breath and stepped into the light.

There was a collective gasp from the four men. Behind their helmets, the mercenaries screwed up their faces in confused concentration. Xiej's anger seemed to evaporate in an instant, to be replaced with a decidedly satisfied grin.

"Bumi…" he accused. Bumi nodded. Xiej's grin widened further and he began to laugh. It was a loud, clear, confident laugh, the laugh of a genuinely charismatic person, but nonetheless held an undertone of wicked steel. Bumi hid his fear behind a defiant scowl.

"I must admit, you've surprised me," Xiej said after a moment. "But in retrospect, this sort of thing seems in character for you. We have been watching you cause trouble for some time, little boy." Bumi rolled his eyes flippantly.

"But very well, Bumi. If you insist on getting yourself killed in a duel, I cannot in good conscience refuse you. Get the swords," he commanded. He turned to his guards. "Wait outside until I call you to get the body. It will not take long."

As the mercenaries filed out of the room, Bumi stepped over the water-filled firepit and pulled the two swords out of their holsters on the wall. He held one out for Xiej, who looked disgusted with him.

"One always offers a dueling sword tip down. It is a sign of honesty and willingness to follow the rules. Surely you don't intend to cheat, Bumi?" Bumi reddened a little and adjusted his grip, offering the sword with its tip down as instructed.

"Sorry. I was trained with the… uhh… Northern dueling rules," he bluffed. Xiej ignored the comment and accepted the sword. He swung it around gracefully as he took his position by the door, clearly well practiced. Bumi hefted his own weapon about rather more clumsily as he headed for his own spot. Its weight felt alien in his hand. The two combatants faced each other. They stared each other down for a bit before Xiej spoke.

"As the acceptor, I get to choose the rules. This duel will follow the Malar rules; we use only our swords and aim only for the torso. No dirty fighting. We fight until one of us is dead. The victor gets this room." Xiej stared murderously at Bumi, who nodded solemnly.

"Very well."

"Let us begin then," Xiej said. They raised their swords, pointing the tips at one another as custom dictated. The duel had begun. Xiej brandished his sword in an elaborate flourish, spinning it about in his hands. It whirled around his body impressively, but Bumi merely faked a yawn, faking maddening disinterest in Xiej's display (though it frightened him greatly).

"Come on then, Xiej. I don't have all day."

Xiej, offended, growled and charged. There was a split second wherein Bumi froze with fear. He had gone too far, he was about to die. Xiej cleared the room in an instant and swung his sword in a wide arc. Bumi's brain took control at the last moment and he barely managed to parry the blow. The clang of their swords' impact echoed through the cave. Xiej grinned evilly and pressed the attack.

Bumi spent an embarrassingly long portion of the duel running. He quickly discovered that he was not nearly Xiej's match in skill or speed. He was forced to constantly give ground, dodging and blocking so desperately that he never got a chance to make any attacks of his own. As Xiej's sword narrowly missed the crown of Bumi's head, his mind berated him for assuming the weapons were merely decorative in nature. Of course Xiej had to be a talented swordsman. Just his luck.

Talented swordsman or no, however, Xiej was clearly focused on the duel and could not see Bumi's plan. Behind the flurry of flashing steel, Bumi could see the glint of Mipsie's eyes, still shielded in the pitch black of the room's back wall. He dodged another blow. Somehow he had to disarm Xiej; he could not leave him alone with Mipsie with a sword.

Xiej swung his sword tirelessly. He held it above his head and brought it crashing down onto Bumi's desperate defenses over and over again. Bumi continually backed up. As Xiej prepared to cut downwards again, Bumi saw his chance, turned, and dove over the golden throne in the room's center. Xiej's sword came slicing down, embedding itself in the soft gold molding.

Xiej roared in fury and tried to pull his sword out, but Bumi jumped up and rammed his own down across it, sinking both weapons deep into the chair. Xiej immediately swung a fist towards Bumi, connecting quite forcefully with his cheek. An explosion of pain danced through Bumi's face, but Bumi managed to catch himself before he hit the ground and leap out of the way of another incoming blow.

Xiej yanked ineffectively on the hilt of his weapon, trying to reclaim it. Trying to ignore the throbbing on his face, Bumi kicked at the ground. The rock beneath the throne came jutting out, tearing through the soaked carpet and tipping the throne onto the floor, pulling Xiej with it. Xiej released the sword hilt in surprise just early enough to avoid being hurled out of the room on a wave of rock. The throne and both swords launched out the open door and down the precipitous chasm.

Xiej and Bumi were still for a time as they stared out the door, listening to the chair thunder its way to the bottom.

"You," Xiej breathed after a moment, "are going to pay for that!" He roared and charged Bumi, tackling him to the ground. In a single, smooth motion, he drew a dagger from one of his sleeves and held it menacingly over his head. His triumphant smile was interrupted when a mighty growl erupted from the back of the room. Xiej dropped the dagger in surprise as Mipsie bounded into view, several tons of white-furred muscle. She beat the side of her chest aggressively. Xiej looked back down at Bumi in disbelief.

"Meet Mipsie," Bumi said, grinning victoriously.

"You cheated" was all Xiej could mutter before he was struck by a hand the size of an iron stove. There was a powerful thud as he met the wall. Mipsie positioned her huge body in between him and Bumi, continuing to growl as if daring Xiej to make another move against her master.

Bumi stood and nonchalantly dusted himself off. He picked up Xiej's fallen dagger and made for the door.

"I'll be back for you later, Mipsie," he assured her.

The looks of surprise on the three mercenaries' faces were priceless. Bumi smiled at them. He bended the heavy door back into place, sealing the chamber, then tossed the dagger off the edge. The guards recovered from their shock and rounded on him.

"Sorry guys," Bumi said, falling into an earthbending stance. "But I can't have you letting him out." He slammed a foot into the ground, feeling for the holes he had cut earlier. He might have lacked the strength to move the whole shelf of rock, but it was an easy matter to rip the top portion off from where he had weakened it, like a perforated piece of paper. His foes were sent hurtling down to meet the throne and dagger.

--

Bumi was seated in the alley where he had hidden Mipsie the previous night when Kee and the Earth Army arrived. It did not take Kee long to find the path's entrance, nor to lead a half dozen men down its length. Bumi watched them idly while he cut notches into his bag of coins. The injury on his face was tender and swollen, purpling into a lovely bruise, but Bumi was feeling better than he had in a long time.

Not ten minutes later the soldiers returned, bearing bewildered facial expressions and a prisoner with a black cloth bag drawn tightly over his head. Xiej did not struggle as they led him away. Kee and a few soldiers remained and Bumi watched them interviewing nearby people for information.

Eventually, Kee stood and scanned his surroundings, looking for something. A look of realization passed over his face as he noticed Bumi's hiding place. Advisor Kee nodded and returned to his work.

After a few minutes, Kee wiped his head exaggeratedly and, with a meaningful look at Bumi's alley, entered a nearby restaurant. Bumi did not miss the hint and, after a several minute wait, he carefully gathered his coins and headed for the same building.

--

He found Kee waiting at a table for two and slid into the seat opposite him. They appraised each other in silence. Kee, bedecked in armor and a flowing cape, looked ten years older than when Bumi had last seen him. The war had been running him ragged. His eyes stared critically down at Bumi, though much of the proud anger he had formerly harbored was absent.

Long after the waitress returned with their beverages, Kee finally talked.

"What are you, Bumi? I didn't destroy my first black market organization until I was in my late thirties." The tense atmosphere evaporated.

"What can I say?" Bumi responded, grinning, "I'm ahead of the game." Kee grinned as he took a long draught. He sighed contentedly and wiped his mouth.

"Well… I'm impressed. We've been trying to capture Xiej for years. How did you do it?"

"Like I said in my letter, I just found him," Bumi lied, not entirely interested in sharing the specifics of his methods. Kee looked at him suspiciously.

"Alright, keep your secrets," Kee relented, pressing on his clenched eyes. "Any chance you know where to find the rest of them?" Bumi's eyes widened.

"Do not worry," Kee quickly added. "I understand if you do not want to talk. I'm not going to try to get you locked away." Bumi relaxed a bit. "I'm guessing you aren't entirely innocent, but I'd rather have the other Consortium big shots than you." Bumi didn't answer other than withdrawing his coins and knife. He ignored Kee's surprised look and resumed the task of notching them.

"It's difficult," Kee admitted after a moment, again pressing his eyes in exasperation. "They are a slippery bunch. Hard to catch. Even when you catch them, though, you can never prove they've done anything wrong, so we just have to release them. They all look like model citizens on paper, every one. If we could convict them of anything, anything at all, they'd be in jail faster than you can say Undermarket." Bumi made no comment as Kee ranted. He clacked a finished coin down and reached for the next one, digging his knife into its sides.

"You know, that's illegal," Kee observed after a moment.

"Yup. It's an offense against the King's reign, isn't it?"

"Yes it is." Point made, Bumi put the coins away and smiled at Kee.

"If you want the rest of the Consortium, here is what you do. You know Cahlan's Cantina?" Kee nodded. "Show up there tonight at midnight. Do it quietly, surround the place, and arrest everybody." He twirled one of the damaged coins in his fingers, smiling mischievously, and then flipped it to Kee, who caught it deftly. The older man looked at it in confusion for a moment, but grinned as realization dawned on him.

--

As Bumi sat all alone in what was previously Xiej's private suite at Cahlan's Cantina, he could not help but notice how his journey with the Consortium had come full circle. He was reclining in the very same chair in which Xiej had been sitting when they had first met. He had already defeated Xiej himself, and was about to witness his defeat of the entire Consortium. Life was good.

His forged coins had done their job perfectly. It was widely known throughout the Consortium that Xiej had departed that morning to deal with a mysterious stranger. If anyone had heard rumors of Xiej's capture, however, they had apparently forgotten them when they had received one of Bumi's coins. Each coin said that a great enemy had been defeated, but that the Consortium's security had been compromised and that everyone should meet at Cahlan's to discuss what was to be done. The various merchants had fallen for it and had been trickling into the cantina all night, setting into their usual ritual of secret dealing, completely unaware of the imminence of their capture.

Bumi smiled proudly and stole a glance out the window again. He could barely make out the shape of a few dozen soldiers sneaking towards him. The time had come.

--

Bumi left the suite quietly, so as to not arouse any suspicion. Xiej had traditionally kept hidden throughout the Undermarket meetings (those that he attended, anyway) so nobody should question his absence. He leaned on the hand railing and stared condescendingly down at the bustling crowd of merchants stuffing their faces and arguing across their tables. They sickened him.

There was a shout and soldiers materialized from all directions. The arguing fell silent and the Consortium merchants hurriedly pocketed their wares, smiling smugly. They feigned innocence, having been through this before.

Kee strode in through the front entrance and stepped onto the nearest table, cape billowing dramatically.

"In the name of the King of Omashu, you are all under arrest," he informed them. A quiet murmur of fear and confusion passed through the tavern. Each of the merchants looked around and spoke to his neighbors in hushed tones, but none seemed entirely convinced.

"For what?" a voice rang out. Kee smiled and held up Bumi's coin in answer.

"For the willful desecration of the King's legal tender."

The merchants were silent with shock.

--

A/N: Phew! Long, belated chapter. By popular demand, there shall be no whining in this author's note. Rejoice!

This chapter is the end of another timeframe. Stay tuned for the next chapter, in which a 19-year-old Bumi shall venture beyond Omashu's walls!


	10. IX: Bumi and the Air Temple

**Episode IX: Bumi and the Air Temple**

94 years ago (Bumi age 19), early fall.

--

Another egg spattered across his chest. Bumi merely stared down at it, ineffectual with shock as its liquid innards squished down into the recesses of his shirt. The boy from whose hand it had sailed grabbed a significant fraction of a rotting cabbage from a nearby refuse pile and wound back. Bumi abruptly returned to his senses as the boy let fly. In an elaborate roll worthy of the secret agents of his youth, Bumi dove for cover behind his wooden cart. Debris rained down upon him, shaking his cart with the impacts. What had he done wrong?

He couldn't figure it out. He had followed the very same tactics that had worked so well for him in the past; his muscles were adequately bulging behind his distinctive, skintight yellow vest, he had shaved the few scraggly whiskers he had accumulated over his journey, his leonine tower of hair was endearingly disheveled, and he came bearing peculiar curios, the likes of which these villagers had never seen! More importantly, however, he had, as always, brought along one of Mipsie's twins to pull his cart and get a little exercise. While Bizzorzix and his sister were not nearly so large or well trained as their mother, they were considerably more adorable and usually garnered Bumi and his wares a great deal of attention. So why wasn't it working here? Did the village of Iier have a bad history with white apes?

Bumi quickly dismissed that possibility. From his hiding place behind his cart he could see Bizzorzix, perched happily on the town's dry fountain a few meters away, being petted and doted upon by a bevy of girls. The ape was getting fed while he was accosted by assorted flying foodstuffs. He growled jealously.

For all his intelligence, Bumi was not well versed in the ways of the outside world. He had only last month begun his trips to the various villages in the scrublands surrounding Omashu, and had thus far met great success. The untapped markets turned out to be enormously profitable, as not only were the villagers incapable of making the great variety of specialty goods that could be found within Omashu's shops for themselves, but also they were unfamiliar with Bumi's eccentricities. All of his peculiar tricks still worked on them, whereas many in Omashu had begun to pick up on them. He had sold out everything he had brought in the villages of Shir and Kwair. The village of Iier, however, some thirty-five miles directly east of Omashu, was as far away as he had ever been from his home and was not nearly so accommodating. He risked a peek around his cart's wooden wheel, but promptly retracted his head again as roughly half of a tomato splashed across the ground.

The gang of boys was relentless in their jeering attack. Bumi fought to contain his anger, trying to remember what Shou had taught him about meditation. Why had none of their parents stepped in yet? Bumi looked entreatingly at the nearest adults who were hard at work repairing their homes, but they ignored him. A rock sailed through the air and struck his cart, knocking one of his Fire Nation dolls onto the ground in pieces. He growled.

"You'll have to pay for that!" he shouted from his hiding place. The boys laughed.

"That's what _your mom_ said last night, but I got a discount!" one of the older attackers taunted, resulting in a chorus of 'oooooooh's from his companions. They braced for an attack, but Bumi was momentarily stunned with his confusion. _What?_ He distractedly tried to recall what had happened to his mother. She was still alive somewhere, he figured, but he was not sure. He failed to see what that had to do with him, however.

"Okay… what?" he asked. The boys quickly realized, to their great disappointment, that mother related insults had no effect on Bumi and responded by tossing another rock at his cart. There was the audible crack of another of his possessions, or perhaps it was his own temper. That was enough.

With startling speed, Bumi darted out from behind his hiding place and grabbed the collar of the nearest boy, sending the rest of the gang dispersing in all directions in squealing fear. Bumi hefted the boy up several feet, to eye level. He and his companions looked terrified and Bumi was not for the first time thankful for his uncommon height and physique.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you attacking me?" he demanded. The boy's fear was quickly replaced by defiant anger.

"You don't belong here!" he spat. "Leggo, you filthy Shuer!" Bumi's eyes widened. The boy continued to struggle futilely in his grip. They hated him because he was from Omashu? His thoughts were interrupted when a third egg struck his left cheek, splashing yolk all over his face. His captive twisted out of his hand and fell to the ground, then scrambled to a safe distance.

Bumi merely stood there, eyes closed, listening to the gang of children berate him for his choice of hometown. He blew his lips in frustration, spitting the egg-y taste out of his mouth.

"Go back to your precious city, Shuer! You're not welcome here!" one of the boys shouted. Emboldened by Bumi's lack of response, they surrounded him predatorily. Bumi felt their vibrations through his bare feet. One of them stooped to pick up a rock and slung it forcefully at Bumi's face.

Bumi sprung into action. In one rapid motion he plucked the projectile out of the air, pulverized it into dust in one palm, and then pitched it mercilessly back into the boy's eyes. The boy crumpled to the ground, blinded and crying. His friends were shocked.

"You want to try that again?" Bumi asked smugly. There was an awkward silence.

"Hey! That guy hurt Hiro!" one of the boys shouted accusingly. Heads turned and all eyes focused on Bumi. The villagers chose _that _moment, of course, to notice him. Just his luck. Bumi crossed his arms in defiance, refusing to feel guilty for defending himself. A stubby man came marching towards them, an angry glint in his eyes. Bumi felt relieved to finally have one of the adults' attention.

"Finally!" he whined. "Why did you let them attack me? I'm just a merchant! What is wrong with this place!?" The man looked at him spitefully.

"Well apparently grown men show up and think they can beat up our children without us noticing," he responded. Bumi frowned.

"I was more than fair. If you aren't going to stop them from attacking innocent strangers… innocent _allied_ strangers, than I will. Especially if it's me they're attacking." The man did not look convinced.

"Pfft… _Allies_, you say?" he scoffed. "I'm sorry, but hiding behind your impenetrable walls while the rest of us suffer and die to your enemies does not count as an alliance here." He knelt to pick up the fallen doll. _"Bumi's Fire Nation Action Figure, with Real Detachable Limbs,"_ he read. He snorted derisively and shoved the toy's pieces into Bumi's hands.

"We need food, and blankets, and military aid. Not _toys,_" he spat. "We need somebody to protect us, to be here to defend us when the Fire Nation attacks. We need a King that cares whether we perish or not, a kingdom that will stand up for our interests. We don't need Omashu's merchants here to bandy their wealth about in our faces and try to sell us useless tripe like 'Fire Nation Action Figures'." The boys who had been attacking him nodded somberly from behind the man's bulk, all their previous aggressiveness gone in favor of cute misery. The man growled up at the much taller Bumi.

"We are trying to prepare for the Fire Nation's next attack. We faced them all alone not two days ago and will surely face them again. Please leave. Go back and hide behind your walls," he commanded spitefully. Bumi felt the sting from his tongue-lashing and only stood there until the man, apparently satisfied, walked away.

Bumi stared at his feet, lost in thought and surprise.

Bumi looked up at the villagers, many of whom were still glaring at him disapprovingly. Was it really that bad out here? He observed the nearby buildings. Upon second inspection, it was obvious that the city was recovering from some sort of brutal attack. He was embarrassed he hadn't noticed it before. Black scorch marks criss crossed many of the roofs. There was a gaping hole in one of the shops. Flowers and wreaths at many of the doors betrayed the presence of mourning families.

Bumi sighed audibly, giving up. He could feel the angry stares of him as he leaned into his cart and rifled around a bit before withdrawing a small crate of rock candy, the only food he had with him (not counting his lunch).

"It's not _my_ fault," he reminded the villagers petulantly. "Have some candy." The eyes still followed him as he set the candy on the ground in front of him. No one moved to thank him, or even moved at all.

"Come on, Bizzy," he said quietly. Bizzorzix rushed enthusiastically to him, bowling through several of the girls that had been petting him in his rush to rejoin his master. He leapt into Bumi's arms, hoping to be carried (and nearly knocking Bumi out in the process), but Bumi quickly dropped him, grabbed his cart's yoke, and, with another loud sigh, began the long journey home. The villagers' angry stares bored holes in his back.

--

Sunlight filtered through the sparse cover of pine boughs, dappling Bumi's back as he plodded onward. Though Bumi had walked this very same road this very same morning, he was amazed by all he had missed on the way up. There were signs of the war everywhere. Burnt trees, freshly dug graves, conspicuously empty livestock pens; they all pointed to a world gripped by conflict.

Even beside all of the concrete proof of the world's difficulties, however, Bumi found that the day seemed a bit less bright. The birds that had this morning seemed carefree and happy now only sang dirges for nests lost in the blazes. The scraping of the wagon's wheels on the dirty road screeched endlessly in Bumi's head and he increased his pace, longing to get to the inn in Shir and rest.

Bumi wasn't sure how to feel. There were many advantages to being a realist. One could see the truth and act on it unburdened by silly outside factors. There were difficulties too, however. When something terrible happened and a realist was proven right, could he honestly brag about it? Bumi very rarely reconsidered his personal philosophies, but he was surprised to find himself longing for just a little bit of the optimistic world from all the fairy tales.

In the fairy tales, the city would have enough troops to go around and the villagers would not pelt their allies with garbage. War was supposed to bring out the best in the good guys. In the stories, the good guys were supposed to set aside their differences, bind together under the leadership of a courageous hero, and defeat a superior opponent through the twin powers of determination and righteousness! The world was not like the stories, however, and this was not happening. Nearly all contact between the four nations had ground to a halt (unless one counted physical contact of the lethal variety). News was slow enough within the Earth Kingdom, and a city could be occupied for weeks before Ba Sing Se knew it had fallen at all. It was even worse for their supposed allies. The Fire Nation had been firing on any ships found in open water and no one had seen a flying bison in years, so the Earth Kingdom was, for all intents and purposes, alone.

In the stories, this would be the time when a hero would surface to save the day. When things seemed like they couldn't get any worse, someone pure, who stood for everything that was good, would emerge and vanquish the world's foes. It would be so easy for the hero in question. Everyone would follow him and the war would end and no more people would die.

Of course, things were not so easy. Heroes like that did not exist. The war _would_ end, but it would only do so by itself, through the efforts of ordinary men and the unstoppable progress of time. Eventually, the Fire Nation would run out of resources and have to stop. Or they might even conquer the world, but they would never be able to hold it. They would get too spread out, their supply lines would collapse, and the world would equilibrate again. It might take a hundred years, but the war _would_ end.

This idea was not as comforting as Bumi wished it were.

--

Despite spending most of the day philosophizing, Bumi felt little better that night. He sat at one of the tables in Shir's inn, idly picking at a bowl of chicken and rice. There is a certain set of questions that every thinking man has to answer for himself at some point (or, alternately, ignore). Did everything have a purpose? Did heroes exist? Did Bumi, as a naturally gifted man who could likely, if he played his cards right, outwait the entire war in relative comfort without ever seeing a battle, owe the world at large anything? To Bumi, these answers had always been simply 'no', but he had to wonder.

Heroes were always exceptional individuals. They were _almost_ always devoted to good, utterly flat and unthinkingly compassionate, they _almost_ always had lost a parent or other loved one to the bad guys, and they _almost_ always were generous to everyone they met. They were utterly, unfailingly exceptional, though. Better than the average person in some way.

This realization bothered Bumi. _He_ was exceptional. He was smart, a genius even. He knew more than anybody he had ever met. He was obviously not devoted to good, nor particularly compassionate, nor had he lost parents to the Fire Nation, and he was quite the opposite of generous, but no one could claim Bumi did not possess uncommon talent. Was _he_ this hero he struggled to picture? Was it _his_ job to rally the world and defeat the bad guys? Bumi didn't have much of an appetite and pushed his bowl away.

Bumi had never really believed in the spirits. Of course, in a world where every third person claimed to have actually seen an actual spirit at some point or another in their life, you never admitted that you didn't believe in spirits. They were part of everyday life, whether they were real or not. There was very little to be gained by telling people that the one thing keeping them from committing suicide was something of an elaborate tall tale, so Bumi didn't. The problem, as Bumi saw it, was deeply ingrained in peoples' concept of the spirit world. People honestly believed that the spirits helped them in day-to-day life, that they were benevolent, supernatural beings of unfathomable power. To Bumi, this was obvious nonsense. There was a horrible war going on. Thousands of innocent lives were being lost. That it had happened at all was proof, in Bumi's mind, that the spirits either couldn't help or didn't care to. Bumi did think about and talk to the supernatural, but only in the manner one thinks about and talks to an imaginary friend one no longer really believes in to organize one's thoughts.

Regardless, if Bumi _had_ believed in the spirits, he might have thanked them right then, for at that moment, Fate tossed him an answer.

"You mustn't give up hope, Mea. The Avatar will return." A trio of women sat at the next table. The two older women were trying to console a recently-married, recently-widowed girl. Bumi's eyes widened at the comment.

It had been innocent enough, really. It was the same sort of hopeful opiate that kept the people of the world from lying down in the dirt and dying. Bumi didn't overmuch approve of the idea of sitting back and presuming hope will fix your problems for you, but hope made people happy, and he saw no reason why it was his right to take that from them.

Still, it was a surprisingly convenient answer to Bumi's questions. _Of course_ he wasn't the hero. The Avatar was! The Avatar, who actually was the hero in many of the stories Bumi had been recalling, actually existed!

Or did, at one point. Bumi had never entirely squared with how he felt about Aang's fate. On one hand, he refused to sugarcoat it. The airbenders had been attacked. Attacked in a very significant manner at all four of their temples. A great fraction of them were dead. There was no denying this. Fire Lord Sozin had quite intentionally attempted mass genocide of their people, no doubt with the specific goal of killing the Avatar, Bumi's friend, Aang. The facts seemed stacked against Aang.

On the other hand, every time he considered that Aang might have died in these attacks, Bumi would be filled with unease. Some chord deep inside him would vibrate in irritation. Aang was not dead. Somehow he felt sure. Never having been one to rely on intuition, however, Bumi chose to point out the many facts that supported this theory as well. No other people on the planet were so singularly mobile as the airbenders, no others were as self sufficient, no others as good at hiding. It was entirely believable that dozens of the monks had survived and were at that very instant training Aang for his inevitable role as the world's savior.

Bumi smiled and pulled his bowl back to him.

--

The next evening, Bumi led Bizzorzix up the side path of Shou's new house to stable him with his mother and twin. At the time, Shou had felt guilty enough about spending so much of their money that he hadn't batted an eyelash at Bumi's demand that it have a stable and large yard for his beasts. Idala, Shou's new wife, had never particularly appreciated this agreement but Bumi didn't care. He figured that, considering he was paying for her house, the least she could do was take care of his pets.

He opened the wide swinging gate more out of tradition than anything else; Bizzorzix was more than capable of climbing over it. The two of them entered the stables, where Mipsie and Jipsie, Bizzorzix's sister, were grooming one another. As soon as they arrived all three apes hooted and jumped about, alternately tackling one another and Bumi in affection. While the twins set to chasing each other around the yard, Bumi scratched the fur behind Mipsie's long, floppy ears and brushed some of the mud off of her since-regrown horns. She rumbled in delight under his touch.

Shou's house was quite lovely, really. Bumi had early on recognized what Shou's marriage would do to their friendship and had had thenceforth made a point of vocally panning every feature of the house (and indeed every decision Shou made for a month or two afterwards). In truth, though, it was a fine building, spacious and well built with glass windows and carved wooden doors and situated in a clean neighborhood in Upper Omashu. Bumi decided he'd drop in and annoy Shou's wife, one of his new pastimes. While he was ultimately happy to see his friend happy, Idala had taken something from him, and he would not take that lying down.

--

It was dinnertime at the Shou residence when Bumi waltzed through the door. Shou was seated at the kitchen table playing a card game against his nine-year-old stepson Gao (and losing badly, as it turned out), while Idala was putting the finishing touches on some sort of noodle-based meal.

Bumi seated himself at one end of the table without asking for permission. Idala looked at him, her pretty face somewhere between surprise and great annoyance. Shou grunted, well used to Bumi's lack of anything resembling manners and too enrapt in his game to say anything coherent. Idala sighed, visibly bracing herself.

"There is plenty to go around, Bumi. Would you like to have dinner with us?" she asked quietly, clearly remembering the _last_ time Bumi had dined with them.

"I think I would, actually," Bumi said, confirming her fears. Her face fell, but she raised no argument. That settled, Bumi leaned forward to spectate Gao and Shou's game.

"You're back early," Shou observed, glaring possessively at his hand.

"Yup. Play the Arsanine Armor card," he advised. Shou rubbed his chin in contemplation. He could never tell if Bumi was trying to help him or sabotage him. He chose to trust Bumi and played the card while Bumi tried to hide his victorious grin.

"Hey Bumi, did you bring me anything?" Gao asked hopefully. He and Bumi had gotten along rather well, mostly because they acted about the same age. Meeting someone who found his tricks almost as funny as he did was one of the few benefits Bumi had gained from Shou's marriage.

"Nah. I'm afraid they just threw eggs at me. I can ring some of the yolk out of my shirt if you want," Bumi offered jokingly, fingering his vest.

"Okay!" Gao replied cheerfully. Shou faced Bumi, eyes wide.

"Really?" he asked. Bumi shrugged.

"Sure. It's kindof dry, but maybe if we wet it a little it'll come out pretty well." Shou shook his head in irritation.

"They threw eggs at you?"

"Yup. Turken eggs, in fact. None too fresh, methinks. Turns out the village of Iier isn't much fond of 'Shuers'. Said the Army had betrayed them and so on." Shou looked very much disturbed by this news. Idala set a steaming bowl of noodles in front of each of them.

"Betrayed them?!" Shou sputtered, "after everything that's happened!? I can't even… of all the miserable, ungrateful things, how could they? Just goes to show-" he trailed off, muttering angrily. Bumi ignored him and was about to ask Gao to explain the mother-related insult he had heard when Idala took her seat.

"Did you hear about this?" Shou demanded of his wife, gesturing angrily at Bumi. "He goes to Iier and gets attacked, just for being from Omashu! Some gratitude! After all the things the army has done for them, all the things the soldiers have sacrificed!"

"That's terrible," Idala said, clearly not nearly so incensed as her husband.

"It wasn't that big of a deal, Shou," Bumi insisted. Shou turned on him.

"It _is_ a big deal! The Earth Army has done everything it can and then some to save the kingdom, and yet it's still not enough! We can win this war, but not if our own people pelt us with garbage. They should be thanking us, supporting us in our time of need!"

"Dear, calm down," Idala commanded. "The army does wonderful things, and people appreciate the sacrifices you have made. It is their time of need too, though. More so than you realize. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They stayed in our town for weeks, eating up all of our food and medical supplies. Someone was raped nearly every night. It was terrifying. It became awfully easy to hate the people in the stronghold cities who didn't have to sleep on the floor because a firebender wanted their bed." Shou looked forlorn and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. It's just… I know the army is doing all it can," he said sadly. "I only lasted one battle, but I don't regret it, not at all. I would give my other foot in an instant if I could. And I know my old soldier brothers would too. We love our nation; we would give anything to save it. It is…" Shou paused, searching for the right word, "disappointing that that means so little."

Nobody had a comment to that.

"I don't know," Shou continued. "How long will this war last? We're losing. Losing badly. We need something. A plan, a trick, an alliance."

"An Avatar?" Gao offered.

"Yeah… Yeah, we need the Avatar." There was a long silence. For his own part, Bumi spent it contemplating again the Avatar and his destiny. It was hard to reconcile Aang with the Avatar, hard to believe that the silly little boy he and Kuzon had led around was the planet's spirit incarnate.

"You know," he said after a moment through a mouthful of noodles, "I once knew the Avatar." The three looked at him with surprised stares. Bumi had barely accepted Aang as the Avatar himself; he certainly hadn't told anyone else about it.

"Really?" Shou breathed.

"Yup. He was my best friend before the war started." Bumi continued to eat, ignoring the ominous silence of the family trying to digest his words. There was an almost audible breaking point before Idala recovered enough to ask the obvious question.

"Where is he?"

"Don't know," Bumi admitted. They looked disappointed.

"How can you not know?" she pressed, perhaps suspecting Bumi was hiding something. "If you were his best friend, surely he has told you where he's hiding! Doesn't he know the world needs him?" Bumi frowned at her.

"Aang was a bit scatterbrained but he would never abandon the world to die. Neither would the other air monks. I'm sure there's a very good reason for why he hasn't shown himself."

"So he is hiding!" she accused. "You know more than you are saying. Surely you have enough loyalty to the crown not to hide something so important!"

"First of all, I don't have a lick of loyalty for the crown, so you might as well stow that kind of guilt trip. Second of all, like I _just_ told you, I don't know where he is! He probably escaped the Fire Nation attacks and is holed up in some mountain somewhere, waiting to make his move! Be patient!"

"We can't afford to be patient!" she shrieked. "We need him, we need him now! People are dying!"

"Who am I to force his hand? He's the spirit of the whole world! Let him do his job!"

"But he's not doing his job!" Bumi pushed his chair back and rose threateningly to his feet, but Shou grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down into his chair.

"Enough, both of you!" Bumi and Idala stared daggers at one another, but quieted. The family ate in silence.

"He's probably dead. Moved onto the next nation," Gao suggested after a moment. The uneasiness in Bumi's stomach returned.

"He's not dead."

"He probably is. Probably reborn in the Water Tribes." They ignored him. Bumi gritted his teeth and tried to do the same.

"He's probably dead again, then," Idala said, no doubt trying to egg him on. "Water nation isn't doing too well either, last time I checked."

"Earth Kingdom, then?" Gao asked.

"Unless he's in Omashu or Ba Sing Se, there's a good chance he's dead again."

"So… Fire Nation?" Bumi slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes clatter noisily.

"He's not dead!" Idala glared at him.

"Why don't you prove it?" she challenged. Shou stepped in again.

"Enough of this! Let's keep things civil, alright?" Idala nodded, but kept her gaze on Bumi. Bumi matched it defiantly. "Dear," Shou continued conciliatorily, "you don't need to yell at Bumi for the world's problems, and Bumi…" he paused, clearly wary of his next words, "maybe she's right." Bumi growled.

"She's wrong," Bumi informed him.

"Prove it," Idala hissed. All three of them stared at him expectantly. The seconds ticked by like hours. Bumi frowned deeply, feeling cornered.

"Fine." Bumi rose from his chair and left the house, slamming the door violently behind him.

--

Bumi cussed and complained to no one in particular as he walked the darkened streets of Upper Omashu. He selected quite a few colorful adjectives for Idala and a few more for Shou's apparent lack of loyalty. Apparently it was his lot in life to lose every human whose company he had ever enjoyed. Shou was whipped, Kihni had passed away, Kee was too busy, his parents were losers, Kuzon was no doubt holed up in some stuffy court somewhere in the Fire Nation, and Aang was in hiding while the world sullied his good name.

Well, Bumi wouldn't stand for it. Aang was his friend, someone who would never betray him, nor anyone. Years ago Bumi had vowed to wait for Aang's return, but enough was enough. No more waiting. He would find Aang and _prove_ that he had not forsaken his duties as Avatar. Aang was that hero and, wherever he was, he was acting in the world's best interest.

Bumi would seek Aang out. He wished, now, that he had kept Aang's last letter to him. He remembered it word for word (and indeed, it didn't offer any tremendous insight that would help him now), but somehow he knew he'd feel better if he still had it. It would be a great conversation piece when he found his friend; no doubt they'd each have many tales to tell. Aang had lived at the Southern Air Temple when Bumi had known him. He would begin there.

He would leave at once. Tomorrow. Tomorrow _morning_. The shops and such were closed already (and due to his actions a few years ago, there was no longer an organized nighttime market from which to buy). It did not matter that his ill-fated trip to Iier was the farthest he had been from the safety of Omashu in ten years, nor that it was a thousand miles of dangerous travel to get to the Southern Air Temple, nor that it would take him months to get there. Bumi was a mad genius, the maddest there ever was. If anybody could find the Avatar, it was he.

Bumi was so wrapped up in planning that he did not sleep at all that night.

--

"And you're saying this will keep me warm _and_ comfortable?" Bumi asked, squeezing the parka's cuff in between his thumb and forefinger.

"Oh yes Sir, warm _and_ comfortable."

"And you want eleven gold pieces for it? It doesn't look _that_ warm _or_ comfortable," Bumi said, standing and eyeing the merchant suspiciously. The man bleached.

"It… it's a real parka, though. Made by a real southern tribesman. They're the best in the world," he stuttered.

"Really…" Bumi replied incredulously. "I find that hard to believe, considering how all the trade lines have collapsed. Surely this doesn't predate the war?"

"Oh no sir!" the man insisted. "The trade lines haven't _all_ collapsed. I have a brother who lives in Ojirun. The Fire Nation taxes everything that goes through it, of course, but they haven't cut it off. Lot of smuggling goes on. The tribesmen are desperate; they'll take practically any offer. It's the sneaking it out that's costly." Bumi decided not to press the issue, but not because of the man's arguments (in fact, he considered reporting the fellow to Kee just out of spite). However, the merchant had given him precisely the information he wanted. He probably could use a water tribe parka on his journey, but more useful was knowing how to find the tribesmen themselves. Ojirun it was.

"Very well," Bumi said, and placed the coat atop the pile of supplies he had already selected. The merchant looked visibly relieved and added its price to the little notepad he held.

Bumi returned his attention to the shelves of traveling gear as he checked off items in his mind. Warm clothing, rope, canned food, a machete, water, torches, oil, matches, a hat, a bedroll, a backpack, a fishing pole and line, maps of the Southern Earth Kingdom, nautical charts, he had them all. Added to a hefty sum of money tied up so it wouldn't jingle too invitingly, a few esoteric knick-knacks to barter, and the clothes on his back, and he was ready.

"Alright. I think that's it," he told the merchant and counted out the final payment.

--

Bumi found Shou waiting for him outside of the shop, petting Mipsie's broad head.

"What are you doing here?" he asked impersonally as he took a seat at the nearest bench and set to packing the gear into his new backpack. Shou joined him.

"I guess I wanted to see if you meant it or not."

"I meant it."

"I see that." They sat in silence while Bumi packed. Shou sighed.

"I'm glad to see you taking an interest in the war, I really am," Shou confessed after a time, "but I wonder if you might be going about it the wrong way."

"Aang is the Avatar. Finding him sounds like a pretty good way to me."

"But like you said, who are you to force his hand?"

"Oh, so now you're agreeing with me?" Bumi challenged. "I thought you thought your dear wife was right?"

"I never said that. I merely acknowledge the possibility." Bumi spat dismissively.

"What would you have me do, then? Join the army?"

"Yes."

"No," Bumi immediately replied, imitating Shou's tone. "You might be willing to give your feet for the crown, but I'm not. I'm doing this for Aang, for my friend, not for our fat pustule of a king and his bureaucracy." Shou seemed saddened by his words. Bumi shoved the last item into his bag, stood, and patted his surrogate father consolingly on the shoulder.

"Besides, I'm bored anyway. Take care of Mipsie for me." He offered a hand. Shou smiled and took it, allowing Bumi to help him to his feet. Shou pulled him into a hug.

"I will. Take care of yourself, Bumi."

"I will." Bumi patted Mipsie's snout, then turned to go.

"And say hi to Aang for me," Shou called.

--

Bumi's bare, calloused feet crunched against the gravelly road that stretched from Omashu and wove its way southeast towards the Si Wong Desert. It was the advent of a great new adventure, and Bumi swam with joy. He had put this off for too long. Omashu was his home and probably always would be, but the world was too big of a place for one to spend six whole years as a merchant, no matter how successful you were. The air was fresh, the sun was shining, and Bumi was hopeful.

Ahh, how he had dreamed of just this sort of thing when he was younger! He was a commando or a secret agent or a master hunter or even a king (hey, it was just pretend), embarking on a mighty journey! He would face many perils but emerge victorious over them all!

Bumi remembered his time with the Trio of Valor fondly. As he walked, he wondered how the years had changed his friends. Aang was immutably childlike, Bumi decided. Whether that was because Bumi remembered him only as a naïve twelve-year-old boy who had not yet seen the attempted genocide of his people or because of some inherent aspect of his personality, Bumi did not know. Either way, he imagined finding Aang much the way he left him, unchanged by growing up. He'd be taller, no doubt. And an even mightier bender, that was true too. But at his core, Aang would be the same. Bumi was sure of it.

As for Kuzon, Bumi had to think a little harder. Kuzon was a considerably more complex person than Aang, rather like Bumi himself was. To them, the airbender's unwavering moral stance had always seemed like something of a copout. While Aang accepted the world without questioning, Bumi and Kuzon struggled with the logistics and tried to reconcile their minds and their hearts. No, Kuzon would not be the same. He would have learned some truths, become smarter and wiser. He could have done any number of things in the past years. The Fire Nation was full of work for an intelligent nobleman. He could be a councilor, perhaps, or a minister. Or possibly he was working on his father's estate, preparing for when he would inherit it himself. The possibilities were many.

Bumi wondered for a moment how he had changed. Not much, he decided, and left it at that. He had all the time in the world to think about it.

--

If there was one thing that Bumi's journey instilled in him, it was an unhealthy hatred for whoever had drafted his map. On many an uncomfortable night after a ruthless day of hiking, Bumi would swear on his headband that, if he survived long enough to return to Omashu, he would hunt down the man responsible and gut him. Progress was excruciatingly slow; it turned out that what looked like a meager distance on the map was, in fact, an arduous trek across miles and miles of unforgiving terrain. The world was bigger than he wanted to believe.

The feeling of happiness and hope he had experienced on the first day had slowly but surely evaporated, leaving only angry stubbornness to fill the void. While at first Bumi had distracted himself by imagining all of the practical jokes he would play on Aang when he saw him, all the fun they would have, as the journey became rougher his mind became increasingly focused on trying to figure precisely how many more steps would finally take him to Ojirun. He absolutely refused to give up, however. He would finish his journey even if it killed him, if only to be able to say he had defeated the cartographer and his blasted little map.

Bumi's decision to leave the road and cut directly across to Ojirun turned out very poorly indeed. The terrain grew more and more difficult as he went. The dry scrubland had steadily given way to more lush biomes and soon Bumi had seen his first thunderstorm. It had been appealingly novel at the time, but as he worked his way along the western edge of the gigantic swamp, where fresh water met the ocean in a hideous, festering expanse of bog that extended out as far as he could see, he quickly added an unhealthy hatred for water of any form to his list. Insects pestered him constantly, it took him days to walk distances he had walked in hours before, many of his canned foods had spoiled and he couldn't find anything else to eat except for the slimy, eel-like creatures that writhed in the mud underfoot (on really lucky days he would find the occasional bitter fruit, which quickly became cause for celebration), and his clothes were never _ever_ dry. He spent much of his time sick to his stomach from having tried to eat some poisonous creature or another (elbow leeches, as it turned out, tasted delicious, but contained a paralyzing neurotoxin).

It took him all of a month to pass through the swamp's southern border, after which point the journey became easier. The swamp again gave way to firmer, drier ground, and Bumi's spirits managed to lift at least a bit. When he finally saw the road, the first sign of humanity he had seen in weeks, Bumi dropped to his knees and embraced the ground. He swore never again to make up shortcuts through a swamp without thinking them through. The road was where it was for a reason.

As per his new philosophy, he stuck to the road and even took something of long detour through Chin village, wherein he rested for a few days, perhaps for the first time in his life glad to be sleeping in a bed. He mostly kept to himself, spending his time restocking those supplies ruined by the swamp and buying lavish meals at every opportunity. As per his general distrust of people (and wishing to avoid another barrage of eggs), Bumi told no one his name, hometown, nor where he was going (which was good because Chin village was almost uniquely incensed with the very mention of the word Avatar).

Refreshed and restocked, he continued on in an eastwardly direction, keeping primarily to the coast. The weather become colder and he finally donned his water tribe parka for warmth at night (and found it both warm _and_ comfortable). The soil was rocky and Fire Nation patrols were numerous. Bumi was nearly captured several times.

Ultimately, Bumi's journey taught him many things. There was little incentive like wishing-not-to-die to teach a fellow survival skills, and Bumi felt stronger and more accomplished with each day that passed. He came to recognize the animals that made the Earth Kingdom their home, learned more about the advantages and disadvantages of different terrains than he could ever possibly use, and even found that the ardor of his travels and the fresh, clean air helped him think. He had envisioned a half dozen genius ideas, prank and business venture alike, to try as soon as he returned home. Still, despite the many things he gained from them, the recent months had been by far the hardest ones of Bumi's life, and so it was with no small amount of gladness that he laid eyes on Ojirun for the first time.

--

Ojirun was a dirty, cramped coastal city that, were it not occupied by the Fire Nation, would have about the same quaint charm as Lower Omashu. Dozens of homeless people, displaced by the Fire Nation troops that made the city their base, stared blankly at Bumi as he traveled the streets. Before the war, Ojirun had been a large port city, central to the trade routes between the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe and between the southern Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. The trade routes had all dried up with the Fire Nation's first attacks, but with or without trade, Ojirun was well outfitted to ship a great deal of people and goods. Its roads were large and well maintained, it had a ready supply of labor, and its massive, shallow harbor could safely service even the Fire Nation's iron warships.

The Fire Nation had stepped in and established a permanent footing in Ojirun and had been using it as base of operations in the south since the war began. Troops, war machines, and looted goods invariably went through Ojirun, where they would stay (enjoying their pick of the city's shifty nightlife activities, in the troops' case) until they were organized enough to depart. The Fire Nation were an enormously destructive force on the city itself, which once rivaled Gaoling, its sister city to the east, in beauty and riches.

Bumi picked his way down the narrow weave of streets, heading towards the dock. The merchant had claimed the earth and water nations still used the port, with and without Fire Nation permission. The Southern Air Temple rested on one of the peaks of the Patola mountain range, an archipelago of unbelievably tall mountains. Aside from the temple itself, there was no civilization that Bumi knew about, and with the Air Nomads supposedly extinguished, there was no convincing reason for him to be there. Surely the Fire Nation would stop him if he let slip his destination, so he'd have to find a way to do it secretly. Bumi figured any Water Tribe ships would be largely ignored, as they had to pass the Patolas anyway on their route home. A big Earth Kingdom ship would be suspicious, but what self respecting Fire Nation ship captain would waste his ammo on a mere fishing boat? None, Bumi hoped.

At the shoreline a half dozen ironclad ships rumbled like a pod of beached whales, their pointed bows curled up as if to clench the sun. Wooden docks and loading cranes straddled the great ships as dozens and dozens of people swarmed about them, loading and unloading their cargo. The smell of chum and sweat was everywhere. It started snowing softly, hiding the layer of dried gullican feces that covered nearly everything under something somewhat more palatable. The miserable workers paid the weather no heed and continued their labor. Fire Nation personnel were omnipresent and watched with hawkish eyes to oversee the loading. Bumi shivered and pulled his parka more snugly over his shoulders.

Bumi trudged through the puddles of dirty slush in the warships' shadows, trying to find a boat not of Fire Nation origin. When he squinted, he could just make out the splintered mast of a former trade ship in the choppy ocean beneath one of the iron giants, but aside from that found nothing. The only operable trade ships were run by Fire Nation merchants, no doubt desperate for the business the war had denied them. It was clear that even they, however, we carefully watched by the Fire Army, and so Bumi gave them a wide berth.

Ninety minutes into his stay in Ojirun, Bumi came to the unfortunate realization that he would be stuck there for a while.

--

"Pelts… Mostly arctic leopard," the man explained to one of the dock overseers. Bumi took notice from behind the crate he was carrying. He did not pause in his work, not wishing to be yelled at again, but strained his ears to listen. With a grunt, he hefted the heavy box of iron bars atop two others in the stack. He slowed his pace on his way back to the ship so he could catch a glimpse of this new man.

He was wearing drab gray and black clothes, a thick parka and boots. His eyes were blue and his hair black and flowing. On top of that, he had come to the port in a small sailboat, laden with animal hide and a young boy with a partially shaven head. Definitely a tribesman.

Bumi had been waiting for this opportunity for days, enduring backbreaking labor at the docks and using his well-honed eavesdropping skills. It hadn't taken long to learn that while indeed, water tribesmen occasionally did appear at the port, they were not particularly welcome and were scarcer and scarcer every week. Judging by the desperation and anxiety in the southern man's face as he faced the Fire Nation worker, he did not cherish his time here.

"Arctic leopard pelts, eh? Hmm…" the dock worker said, looking critically at the example pelt the tribesmen had handed him. "How many?"

"Thirty eight leopard, one hundred forty one penguin." The worker looked condescendingly at the man.

"Very well. Tariff is ten copper per penguin hide, two silver eight for each leopard." The tribesman's face fell further.

"It was only one silver thirty last month," he protested cautiously. The man shrugged.

"Times have changed. Shall I have you arrested for tax dodging?"

"No!" the man insisted. "No, no. I'll pay it." His son handed him a miserably thin cloth bag, from which he counted the requisite fee into the smirking overseer's hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he sneered. The tribesman only nodded morosely. He and his son gathered the pelts and headed off into the city.

Bumi watched them as carefully as he could without drawing suspicion. He loaded another two crates, waiting for a moment in which the overseer would not be watching. Eventually, that moment came, and Bumi snatched a lighter crate from another nearby pile, hefted it up in front of his face, and carried it purposefully down the street he had seen the tribesman go. He managed to look like he was on a delivery assignment (he _was _a rather experienced delivery boy, after all), and no one questioned his exodus.

--

As soon as he was out of sight of the docks, Bumi cracked open the crate and, finding it full only of salt, tossed it unceremoniously into the nearest alley.

He found the man after a brief search and shadowed him for a few blocks, pretending to browse the few remaining stalls. He would need to corner the man someplace reasonably private, someplace where they could talk without anyone thinking anything of it. Despite the man's obvious efforts to cobble together a disguise, he and his son screamed Water Tribe with their every action, and no doubt people would be watching him. He'd have to be careful.

The man and his son sold their pelts at a leatherworker's shop on the northern edge of town, then set to browsing the street wares, no doubt replenishing their supplies. They kept their heads down and, though they walked with the confident agility that set them apart from Earth Kingdom men (who moved as if they were worried the ground might suddenly shift out from underneath them) and the Fire Nation soldiers (whose every step appeared an attack on the Earth itself), their desperation followed them like a cloud.

Eventually they turned into a small restaurant. Bumi put down the pair of eyeglasses he had been 'testing' for the past ten minutes (earning him a very angry glare from the man selling them) and rushed to intercept them. He entered the restaurant and, ignoring the greeter, marched up to the booth at which the tribesman sat and slid into the seat next to his son.

"Malakoda!" he brayed in mock drunkenness, as if he and the tribesmen were old friends. The tribesman's blue eyes glittered in surprise and anger.

"I think you have me confused with someone else, sir. Please leave." Bumi ignored him.

"Haha, you old kidder you! You didn't think you could fool your old pal Jimthro, did you? How's your mom doing?" He laughed disarmingly. The man looked about nervously, clearly frightened by the scene Bumi was making.

"It's an act. Play along. It works," Bumi whispered fiercely. The man looked about again. Indeed, no one seemed to have noticed a thing out of the ordinary.

"Umm… Heheh, yeah. Just kidding. She's fine," he replied, weakly. They paused. Still no one came to apprehend them, and Bumi grinned in self-satisfaction.

"See?"

"Yes, I see," the man snapped. "What do you want?"

"I want a ride."

"No. My boat won't carry you. Go away," the man replied instantly. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"Liar."

"I said no. Please leave." At that moment, a waitress materialized with two glasses of water for the man and his son.

"You ready to order?" she asked sweetly. The tribesmen looked about ready to talk, but Bumi interrupted him.

"My friend and I," he explained, "will have the mantatee steaks and a loaf of bread with honey. And this little guy wants," he pointed expectantly at the tribesman's son, who, not quite as cautious of Bumi as his father, enthusiastically requested fried arctic hen. Bumi nodded at the waitress. "And we need a pot of your finest coffee." She bowed and ambled away.

There was an awkward pause at the table as the tribesman fought to contain his surprise. As soon as he began to speak, Bumi interrupted him again.

"No. Eat it. I know you can't afford it, but I can, and I'm giving it to you. Eat it." The man nodded, understanding. "I need a ride to the Patolas. The big one, with the giant temple on top of it." The man's eyes widened.

"No, no way. We can't do that, it'd risk everything. The Fire Nation doesn't want anyone near that place." Bumi rolled his eyes again.

"Do they watch it?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to risk-"

"I'll give you ten gold pieces for a round trip," Bumi offered, interrupting a third time. The man stopped talking, clearly weighing his options.

"Fifteen," Bumi said. The man still didn't say anything. "Twenty, then." The man met his eyes, his face incredulous. He nodded slowly. Bumi smiled.

"That's settled, then. Heck, I would have gone up to twenty five-"

"Twenty five, then," the man insisted. Bumi looked at him in surprise, grinned, and nodded.

--

And so it was that a few hours later, Bumi was lowering himself into the tribesman's waiting boat, having spent the interim helping Tarka and his son Nukti buy supplies and load them aboard. They slipped out of the harbor without much trouble and were soon on their way.

It was Bumi's first time on a boat and he quickly decided it was a wonderful break after all of his recent walking and heavy lifting. He had tried to help at first but had quickly revealed his lack of finesse by pulling too hard on some rope or another and nearly upending the boat. Tarka had politely insisted they do the work themselves from that point on and so Bumi got to stretch out on the deck and enjoy the sea air whipping about his face. He watched Tarka and Nukti work and was struck by how adept and at ease they looked. He had ranted to them at length about proper disguises and how not to look like an idiot, but they had taken to their lessons with only moderate success. They were disoriented by the hustle and bustle that Bumi had thrived in for years, and yet there was a poetry in the way they handled the swift craft. Firebenders never looked so serene. Nor did earthbenders. Bumi recalled Master Gar's impassioned speeches about the nature of earth and felt a certain pang of pride at having never listened. There were things to be learned from these people.

--

The three of them talked a great deal during their trip. Bumi found it refreshing, having talked only to himself for months. Though they had been mistrustful of him at first, Bumi found that they were enthusiastically friendly to anyone they respected. They told him many things; about the Fire Nation's first attacks on their homeland, about the best times to catch bull oarfish, how to start a fire using only ice, and more. At his request, they went on at length about the proper operation of a sailboat, and by the time the first gigantic spire of the Patola mountain range appeared in the distance, Bumi could contribute the occasional helpful action with at least some measure of competence (though they immediately fielded the little kid in his place at the first sign of difficult waters. This was a little bit humbling, but Bumi could not deny Nikti's superior skills.)

In return, Bumi told them tales of the Earth Kingdom, stories about his antics with Aang and Kuzon, and how badly the war was going. He taught them tricks for acting like an Earth Kingdom trader, all sorts of unethical marketing practices (considering it would only be hurting the Fire Nation, Bumi did not hesitate to reveal even his most blatantly illegal techniques), and even gave them both haircuts that were less (in his words) 'dorky'.

--

Thirty-six hours at sea finally saw them sliding against the rocky shore of their destination. The mountain jutted mightily into the sky, its peak extending well above the low layer of storm clouds. Shards of rock that had eroded from the great spire's sides had piled into a ring of flat beach. It was dawn, and the early morning's gray light made the entire place look very surreal. Shattered plates of steel were littered about the beach, along with the occasional piece of firebender armor. The scars left by the Fire Nation ships' loading spikes still marred the mountain's otherwise smooth face, a grisly reminder of what had happened to this place.

Tarka and Nikti were visibly worried by even being near such a morbid scene. They helped Bumi gather his gear, promised to return in five days time to pick him up, and then promptly excused themselves. Bumi watched the silhouette of Tarka's sailboat disappear into the fog.

Eventually, Bumi turned his gaze back up to the mountain. Its height was impossible to guess, but it sufficed to say that it was quite high indeed. Bumi could make out a spiraling stone path chiseled into the peak's sides, strongly suggesting that earthbenders had helped the Fire Nation sneak up on the temple. It was broken and neglected, many pieces of it having toppled by the wind and rain. Bumi sighed and headed up the path.

He was only some thirty feet off of the ground when he came to the first gap in the trail too large to jump over. He tried to bend a new one, but aside from making an ineffective crumbling sound, the stone was unresponsive. He frowned and placed a hand on the cliff face, trying to feel for a weakness in the smooth, cold rock. There was nothing. It would not yield to him. Bumi cursed his inability, slammed a hand into the wall, and began to climb.

Bumi had never conquered his difficulties in earthbending. While was arguably a competent bender, to be sure, and had, in a way, 'graduated' from Master Gar's class, he had done so rather behind his fellow students (and indeed, got so fed up by this fact that he declared his training over and never returned). It was not like he could not earthbend. Bumi displayed a mastery of many of the so-called 'lesser' earthbending tricks. His fingers could dig through rock like it was mere jelly, he could climb better than anyone he knew, and his earth puppet skills were second to none. He could sculpt masterfully, and had even invented dozens of earthbending tricks known to no one but himself. When it came to the real brute force, though, the actual movement and destruction of gigantic slabs of stone without touching them, Bumi had always struggled. He could not sustain earthbending, the power would course through him only sporadically. It ashamed and angered Bumi to no end.

Though inside his failures as an earthbender gnawed away at him, on the outside he presented as if he did not care, chose to downplay his love for earthbending to pursue other skills. All alone, slowly scaling a gigantic ocean over a several hundred-foot drop onto jagged rocks and a tumultuous ocean, however, he vented his anger through a lengthy cycle of curse words. It began to rain.

--

It took Bumi the entire day to scale the mountain. He would take the occasional opportunity to rest on the remains of the path, allowing the pounding agony in his arms and legs to lessen while he breathed some warmth into his ungloved hands, but otherwise maintained a brutal pace. Hand over hand, foot over foot, he crawled up the precipitous mountainside, the first one to do so in years, or so he suspected.

When he finally hefted himself over the edge, onto a gently-sloped hillside covered in snow, he was exhausted, famished, bored, and every square inch of his body demanded that he throw himself back off the mountainside, if only to end the pain. He ignored the screams, crawled a few feet, angled his head up to catch his first glimpse of the Southern Air Temple, and then slumped into the snow, instantly asleep.

--

It was dark when Bumi finally shivered himself awake. He rose groggily, groaning at the dull soreness that persisted in his muscles. A great deal of snow had migrated into his parka; this he shook out as thoroughly as possible. He felt dizzy and his breathing was shallow.

He sat and stared up at the temple again. Though it was night, this far above the clouds the moon and stars glowed brightly, illuminating the temple walls with an eerie blue color. He had apparently climbed up onto a raised stone walkway not unlike the bridge into Omashu. The pathway meandered in a natural fashion down a long, terraced slope, leading finally to a shallow valley, covered in snow. Bumi could just make out rooms carved into the vertical cliff faces below. The path climbed upwards as well, spidering out in all directions to lead to the temple's menagerie of blue-roofed buildings. It was an inspiring piece of architecture, somehow appearing simultaneously immovable and ethereal.

After a brief snack, Bumi lit a torch and started up the zig-zagging trail. The ground had been polished smooth by thousands of years of occupation and Bumi's booted feet scraped noisily against it. After passing a field of wooden totems to his left, Bumi came upon a plaza. The path branched several times. Bumi decided on the leftmost path, which extended most directly up the mountain, ending in a series of squat stone buildings stacked atop one another like a staircase.

Bumi explored the temple in wonderment, largely forgetting why he had come in the first place. He wandered from building to building, admiring the craftsmanship of the carved banisters and all of the eccentricities of a society not bound by gravity. Some paths would jut out over some deadly fall and then end suddenly, apparently expecting those who walked on them to be able to make the thirty foot vertical leap to the next one. Bumi found a cavernous hallway that ended in an imposing door with an elaborate system of tubes hanging from it. Bumi could not fathom a guess as to their purpose. He found bison paddocks, meditation rooms, a Pai Sho board, four abandoned gliders, clay ovens, and a few fruit trees. He climbed a curved bridge and stumbled into what was clearly a council room. Its five latticed wooden stools stood in a neat little row. The desiccated remains of a pair of gigantic flowers clumped inside of a pair of wide bowls.

Bumi was well into his second torch by the time he reached the very top of the temple's tallest tower. He peered down at the temple from a stone balcony, examining the tangle of paths and buildings from above. He tried to trace the path he'd taken with his eyes and guessed that he had only explored about half of the temple. He climbed back down to try a different route.

The longer he explored, the more worried Bumi became. The silence roared in his ears. He had never been to an air temple before, of course, but Aang had always described it as a place of activity. His friend had always had a soft spot for animals and had spoken highly of the colony of flighty lemurs. He saw no such creatures now. He was not sure whether to be disappointed or not. In truth, he had suspected that Aang and his mentors would be hidden someplace less obvious than one of the four Air Nomad sanctuaries (he took some offense at the choice of the word nomadic, for the air monks were anything but. Small wonder the Fire Nation had struck them so hard).

When he looked closely enough, Bumi could see signs of a struggle, but they were faint. There was the occasional errant scorch mark on the floor tiles and Bumi found a small piece of metal, apparently having popped off from an undeniably Fire Nation belt. There was not nearly enough damage, though, to support the rumor that the air monks had been completely wiped out. At elevations this high decomposition was slow. There should have been bodies and armor in great, heaping piles, but there was nothing.

More puzzling still, though, was the occasional hint that someone may have cleaned the temple since the Fire Nation attack. In one small room, Bumi found a broom with a great deal of ashes stuck in its bristles. The small grove of fruit trees were healthy and vibrant, as if they had been nursed, and, oddest of all, Bumi discovered a pile of neatly stacked metal blades in a closet.

It was all irritatingly unclear. As he worked his way up the rear path of the temple towards what looked to be a dead end at a balcony, Bumi struggled to rationalize what he had seen. He was alone; that much seemed obvious. The Fire Nation had attacked; that was hard to dispute as well. But how successful had this attack been? Where were the airbenders? Why was Fate messing with him like this? And who had cared enough to sweep the ashes off of the floors, only to abandon the temple later?

Bumi was so wrapped up in his questions that he almost bumped into the man seated serenely on the balcony floor.

"Hello…"

--

A/N: Another chapter! Let there be celebration in the streets! Alas, my boycott of whininess is not to last. Here comes some whining: I really, really hate losing data due to computer failures. Pardon my French, but that sucks. That is all.

Fifteen points to anyone who can tell me from where the names Tarka and Nukti came!

Next chapter: Bumi does some sleuthing.


	11. X: Bumi and the Guru

**Episode X: Bumi and the Guru **

94 years ago (Bumi age 19), early winter.

--

The man smiled. Bumi stared at him, slack-jawed, but he did not seem to notice.

"I was not expecting you," the man admitted. He said it with a serene wisdom that came off to Bumi as very arrogant, as if he expected practically everything that happened to him. Bumi frowned.

"That's odd. I _did_ make reservations." The man chuckled musically.

He was tall and dark-skinned, and of the sort of appearance that made his age impossible to guess. He could have been fifty; he could have been one hundred and fifty. He had a short, fluffy gray beard and, except for a ring of hair stretching from ear to ear, was completely bald. His eyebrows were long and punctuated the great dark depths of his eyes. He looked harmless enough, and Bumi might have dismissed him a fool were it not for the undeniable twinkle of intelligence imbued in the man's gaze. The man's body was thin, almost skeletally so, like a mahogany grasshopper. A modest toga was all he wore, even in the howling cold.

"I am Guru Pathik." His face was calm and passive, as if he was admiring a very great painting that no one else could see.

"Bumi," Bumi grunted. The Guru smiled and nodded. He closed his eyes in concentration.

"You have come a long way, Bumi." It was not a question. Bumi was immediately torn between liking the man for his obvious geniality and hating him for his arrogance.

"Yup," he admitted at length. The Guru said nothing, merely sat, perfectly still with closed eyes. Bumi crossed his arms and looked down at the peculiar man. They remained like this for some time, locked in a contest of wills (on Bumi's part, anyway).

"The friend you seek," Pathik said, interrupting the quiet, "lives still." Bumi was surprised enough that he forgot to be mad at the Guru for correctly guessing another thing about him.

"What? You have seen him?" he asked expectantly.

"I have not," Pathik admitted.

"Where is he?"

"I do not know yet."

"What happened here?"

"I do not know." Bumi growled and struck the wall in anger, leaving a fist sized crater.

"How, then, do you know Aang is alive?" he challenged, gesticulating with both hands. The Guru smiled.

"I had a vision," he said simply. Bumi's head drooped. He leaned against the doorframe and rubbed his eyes in frustration. "A vision," Pathik continued, "of helping a young monk and his sky bison. It came to me years ago. There I was, eating my lunch, when I felt a sudden pull in the endless web of invisible strings that weaves this world together. They always manage to call during lunch!" Pathik chuckled at his own joke. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"And what did this vision tell you to do?" he asked skeptically, already wondering if this Guru was worth his time.

"Nothing. It showed me my connection to the Avatar, showed me I would one day meet him and help him in his task."

"Meet him where?" Bumi asked, "At the Southern Air Temple?" Pathik laughed as if Bumi were merely a precocious child who had asked a charmingly brainless question.

"I do not know where."

"What are you doing here, then?" Pathik looked around, his dark eyes taking in their surroundings.

"It is a lovely place to think about things, isn't it?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. Bumi leaned on the banister and looked out at the forest of tall mountain spires piercing the cloud layer below. His mind, usually racing, felt somehow calmer, more methodical here.

"Yes… yes, I suppose it is," he admitted quietly. They sat in silence for a time. Eventually, Bumi got bored, stood, and brushed his dusty hands on his pants.

"You're sure you don't know what happened to the airbenders?" he asked, supposing it couldn't hurt to make sure.

"I am sure." Bumi sighed. The Guru was useless. He would have to figure it out himself. He made for the door.

"If you are looking for answers, you may find some in the longhouse," the Guru called.

--

Bumi had technically passed the longhouse on his way up, but he did not go there now. He fully explored several of the paths he'd not yet taken first, purposefully avoiding the Guru's help. No doubt the Guru had had some crazy epiphany within the longhouse and believed it was a particularly spiritual area or some other such tripe. No, Bumi demanded hard evidence, clues from which he could logically deduce Aang's fate. Unfortunately, no matter where Bumi went he could not find any of these aforementioned clues. The temple was clean and abandoned, bereft of people both living and dead. He began to get so frustrated that he'd assign wild meanings to the most innocuous things, like an askance book on a kitchen shelf (perhaps a secret, fifth temple was described therein!). He skimmed through half of the cookbooks on the shelf before finally stopping himself with a mental kick to the backside. He cursed his weakness. He was becoming foolish with impatience. He would solve this mystery yet, he just had to remain in control.

Two hours of exploration with nothing to show for it later, however, Bumi finally swallowed his pride and entered the longhouse. He was desperate for something useful and really, who knew? Maybe the Guru's crazy epiphany would rub off on him.

--

Bumi's jaw dropped in surprise, which was at least a little surprising in itself, considering this was exactly what he had been looking for. It was no crazy epiphany. It was a tomb. Red clad corpses lay in piles all about the squat little building. Dozens and dozens of them, skeletal hands still gripping halberds and swords and all manner of wicked implements. Bumi had to duck under the low doorframe and shift one man's remains out of the path. The corpse's arm separated from its shoulder like a damp pretzel. Far from repulsed, Bumi stared at the arm in enrapt curiosity before tossing it into one of the piles.

Time had apparently proceeded slower atop the nomads' mountaintop strongholds, but it had proceeded nonetheless. Fibrous roots slithered their way through the building's dirty canvas roof, meandering across the walls. The bodies were surprisingly intact, no doubt due to the cold air, but they had clearly rested here for some time. Amongst the heaps of slain Fire Nation soldiers, Bumi could see the occasional scrap of orange clothing. Smaller, frailer bodies, not so armor laden. Airbenders. Bumi poked about at the piles, holding his torch aloft as he rifled through them. Thirty-six firebenders, all heavily armed and armored. No doubt elite shock troops. Twelve airbenders, all adult males. No doubt cut down with little trouble by the trained Fire Nation forces.

One former airbender in particular bore a wooden medallion around his neck. He was seated at the back of the room, bathed in the slightest halo of light from where a hole torn by the encroaching plant roots allowed the dim morning sun to pierce. He sat against a pile of snow, his head slumped down into his chest, skeletal eyes peering at the floor. Bumi felt a twinge of pity well up within him, not for himself, for he had never personally known Gyatso beyond that he was a master airbender and much beloved by Aang, but for Aang. The Avatar had lost a friend and mentor, someone desperately important to him. Bumi wondered if Aang would ever recover. Worse yet, if Gyatso had perished here, that meant he was not, in fact, secretly training Aang in the bowels of some hidden mountain cave.

Bumi regarded the body for a while. It was odd. It seemed to him that someone so wise as Gyatso would look peaceful in death. It would have been the romantic thing for him to do, to die looking completely at ease with the world. Gyatso didn't look peaceful. His chin was bowed into his chest as if in submission, his arms were splayed as if in incredible pain. Gyatso looked like he had been speared to the wall. Bumi reached forward and, ever so gently, angled Gyatso's skull back to lean against the wall, letting the former monk stare forward more naturally. He didn't know why it mattered; no doubt Gyatso cared little for his body's position at this point, but it felt comforting to do this honor to someone who no doubt deserved it.

Bumi left the longhouse and resolved not to return.

--

As he chewed the jerky sandwich that was his lunch, Bumi idly wondered if the Guru ever descended from his balcony. From his vantage point now, seated on a small courtyard next to a statue of Gyatso himself, he could just make out the Guru's form, still sitting atop the narrow balcony, a mere speck of a gargoyle on the building towering above him. He certainly looked like a permanent piece of the temple's decoration.

Bumi continued to stare. He did not understand this Guru Pathik. Someone had tended this temple since the Fire Nation attack. Gyatso had certainly not killed all of those firebenders, and even if he had, he certainly had not piled them neatly about the room and then pinned himself to the wall. Someone else had put many of those corpses there. It was probably the Fire Nation, Bumi decided. They seemed like the sort of people that would be perfectly happy to leave their dead behind.

Still, Bumi did not see how the Guru fit into all of this. Furthermore, while twelve airbender corpses was considerably more helpful than zero, it was still many dozens shy of accounting for all of the temple's former residents.

Bumi tried to envision the battle. The Fire Nation must have snuck into the temple at night, as quietly as possible. Using traitorous or, perhaps, prisoner earthbenders, they chiseled the great winding path Bumi had ignored on his way up the mountain. They would have snuck into the temple, filed into every room, then suddenly attacked all at once. The airbenders would not have stood a chance in open combat. Completely unaware, disorganized, and lacking any contingency plan for this sort of thing, many would have been killed in mere moments. Many would have been children, with and without their ritual tattoos. The Air Nomads were singular in all being gifted benders, but also the least interested in the combat implications therein. (In peacetime it was hard to construe earthbending as useful for anything but building, so when there were no buildings to be made, tournaments and wrestling and bendoffs and all manner of destructive entertainment filled the void. Airbenders did not do this.) Some of the adults, at least, would have tried to coordinate an evacuation, while others no doubt would set to blasting their foes off the mountainside. The firebenders would target the sky bison with everything they had, hopefully to rob the nomads of their escape. It must have been a massacre.

Of course, it might not have been. Bison were more alert than humans, and perhaps one had smelled the incoming threat and lowed a warning. Practically the whole temple might have escaped, Aang included, and perhaps only the adults working to get the last few children to safety had perished. This was little better, however, as the escaped airbenders would no doubt find a similar situation at each of their other temples.

It was too early to tell. Bumi wiped his mouth, and continued his search.

--

Bumi clambered his way around the temple for hours, and unfortunately, the more he investigated the less likely it seemed that any of the airbenders had escaped. He found the occasional pile of Fire Nation armor, usually hidden in the snow or elsewhere where it might have been missed by whoever had cleaned up the temple after the attack. The strange, winged helmets glared at him fiercely.

More foreboding still were the bison carcasses. In the shallow valley that stood in front of the temple, what Bumi had originally dismissed as mere snow drifts were actually immense bodies. Their sturdy ribcages were the size of a room and their jet-black horns still pierced the layers of snow from their position atop their great, flat skulls. Bumi idly ran his hands along one of the beasts' enormous shoulder blades, feeling the bumpy, pitted bone slide past his fingers. He wondered if one of them might have been Appa and again felt a pang of pity, but he could not be sure from their skeletons alone.

Bumi carefully scrambled over the valley's rocky edge, hoping to investigate the great hive of holes he had viewed from afar. There were no handholds or paths, befitting a society of people that did not need them, and so Bumi had to sink his fingers deep into the rock just to prevent himself from falling to his death. He inched his way along the side, feeling the wind attempt to dislodge him. The cloud layers below swirled threateningly.

Ever so steadily, Bumi climbed a complete lap over the tall cylinder of rock upon which the valley rested. The holes he had seen turned out not to be rooms, as he had suspected, but only very shallow indentations. Three feet squared, less than a foot deep, with sloping edges, they seemed good for little else but decoration. Bumi grumbled angrily at having expended so much effort for so little information, but stubbornly refused to give up. He began a second lap, in case he had overlooked some feature on his first trip.

The second lap accomplished nothing but further tiring Bumi. Cold, frustrated, and too exhausted to climb all the way out just yet, Bumi eventually reached one of the narrow recesses in the wall and tossed himself inside, glad to receive some respite from the howling wind. He carefully sat on the thin ledge of stone, which was obviously not designed for sitting on (or at least not for people so large as Bumi). He braced his legs against the rock and leaned back to rest. He had combed through nearly the entire temple. If he gave up here, there was nothing left to do but recheck the places he had already seen. Unless there was some hidden passage or something he had otherwise overlooked, he was out of leads and yet he still did not know in full the airbenders' fate. What was his next move? Bumi gently pounded the back of his head against the wall in deep thought. The steady rhythm and brief bursts of pain made him feel a little better.

Suddenly, Bumi stopped. A peculiar image had formed in his mind. He thumped his head once more against the wall, more carefully this time. A pulse of movement echoed through the great spire of stone behind him, bouncing throughout the mountain's intricate geometry before returning to Bumi's waiting ears a fraction of a second later. A realization began to coalesce. Bumi thumped one of his hands, hard, and strained to listen. Over the whistle of the wind and the distant roar of the ocean, Bumi could just make out the sound of a multitude of open spaces cut within the mountain's stone sides. The vibrations traveled a great distance, betraying the presence of thousands and thousands of these narrow caverns. Bumi thumped again and again, each time getting a clearer picture of the mountain's innards. Each of the indentations was hiding a secret opening.

Thusly inspired, Bumi climbed out of his uncomfortable perch, grabbed one of its edges, and pulled. The square indentation came out with surprising ease, like a stone lid. Bumi nearly dropped it, but tightened his grip and held fast. A narrow tunnel extended into the rock, its opening whistling like a flute now that it was exposed to the howling wind. Bumi peered into the darkness at the cloth-wrapped object within. The shape quickly resolved itself to be a body, neatly dressed and entombed in the mountain, thousands of feet above ground. Mortified at his inadvertent disrespect, Bumi hastily replaced the stone lid, which slid in soundlessly.

It was a mausoleum. Bumi struck the wall and listened carefully. He could barely feel the fuzzy outline of a body in each of the pits. Thousands and thousands of airbenders, going generations back, buried above the clouds, dead as they had lived. Bumi felt a mixture of great guilt at being in such a place with amazement at its construction. The stonework was perfectly done, so immaculately cut that the tombs seams were completely invisible. Had he been just a little less stubborn he might have missed it, the most important clue so far. Bumi apologized to the monk he had disturbed and scrambled his way back up to the valley.

--

Bumi stood in the center of the valley, feeling his mood deteriorate. The wind had slowed and a gentle snowfall had begun, casting the world into a peculiar sort of quietude.

So the airbenders really were dead. Many of those entombed below his booted feet were fresh enough to have died in the Fire Nation attacks. Dozens and dozens of them, all slain in one man's insane bid for dominance. Bumi hardly knew what to do. He had nursed this possibility in his mind from the very beginning, but now that it had come to pass it struck him like a ton of bricks. He had been holding onto hope, that narrow possibility that he was wrong about the ways of the world, but again, he had been proven right. Victory had been handed to him, but Bumi didn't feel like celebrating.

So what did he do now? He could hardly leave until he had proven Aang's fate, whatever it may be. He had to know the truth, even if it was bad. Did he start opening the tombs, one by one, until he found the corpse that seemed most like his friend? That didn't strike him as a good time, but he could not at the moment think of an alternative. For the first time in his difficult journey he seriously considered giving up. The temple was dead. With his last thread of hope snuffed out, what was previously a beautiful monument to the Air Nomad culture now appeared only a grisly and disgusting tribute to man's evil. There was no hope to be found here. Bumi hung his head in sadness.

Suddenly, Bumi heard a chirrup, a long trilling note that carried through the air. He lifted his head to look. A white object was flickering in and out of the air, spinning gracefully in long, ornate arcs. A winged lemur. Bumi watched the creature fly with elaborate flourishes, its apparent jovial mood quite unfit for the site of a massacre. It chirruped again and alighted on the curved black horn of one of the snow-covered bison skeletons. It sat and stared at Bumi with wide green eyes.

Bumi laughed halfheartedly. The creature's comical demeanor brought unexpected cheer to his heart. It set to cleaning itself, licking the membranous flaps that hung from its arms with its bright pink tongue. As Bumi watched it, a seed of optimism was planted in his mind and new hope grew. This creature had survived, even without the airbenders around to feed it and care for it. No doubt it missed them and the games they would play with it, but it had escaped the carnage. Bumi guessed it probably spent its time flitting from mountaintop to mountaintop, eating what little fruit the high altitude plants yielded naturally.

The lemurs were not extinct. They had found themselves in the very same position as the airbenders and had survived. Their numbers would dwindle, no doubt, but they were not gone from the world. The same could be true of the airbenders. Nay, the same _should_ be true of the airbenders. Aang was not dead. Even if every airbender had perished, even despite the column of casualties Bumi stood on at this very moment, even despite every piece of evidence to the contrary, something in Bumi's gut assured him this. Aang had escaped. The Guru had even said so.

Bumi mentally kicked himself for that last thought. No, Aang was not dead, but Bumi would not conclude this until he had the proof to back up his hunch. The Guru's 'vision' was not adequate. Bumi had simply missed something in his first run through the temple. Some clue had escaped his notice. He just had to look harder and he would find it.

Bumi turned to look at the great temple with its forest of towers and buildings and wondered where he should begin. Where might he have missed something? The lemur was now occupied in licking its shoulder. It stretched its arm out and worked diligently, moistening every square inch. In the process it looked like it was pointing to a series of squat buildings, nestled in the shadow of the temple's towers.

Bumi sighed. Those buildings were as good as any.

"Alright then, lemur," he said, earning an inquisitive chirp. His boots crunched in the snow as he resumed his mission.

--

As Bumi shut the door of the last of the rooms for the second time that day, he laughed a little at his own expense. He had let the lemur's timely arrival turn him soft and mushy. The little creature had just been cleaning itself; how would a _lemur_ know where Bumi should investigate? Spending so long in the air temple was having a weird effect on him. Bumi vowed to get what he needed and leave before he felt the urge to shave his head or something.

The cluster of squat, domed buildings had yielded nothing. They had once been the young airbenders' rooms, Bumi had decided. Each dome was perhaps eight feet across and rather minimalist in its furnishings, with a bed carved into a wall and a simple desk as the only furniture. All of the monk's possessions could be comfortably kept on a narrow shelf, a mere few inches deep, that spanned one side of the bed. Bumi recalled how unfairly modest he had found his assigned accommodations when he was a scribe in Omashu, but at least he had things to put in his room.

Bumi pondered the monks with an aloof sort of wonderment. That they could be so uninterested in material wealth and comfort was hard to place to a boy raised in the Earth Kingdom. Bumi himself had never been interested in money for money's sake, nor had he demanded particularly opulent living conditions, but the idea of not possessing money at all was strange and foreign to him. Ultimately he decided that to each went his own, but he wasn't planning to give up his wealth any time soon. Money could buy power and freedom to do what you want, which, along with being a mad genius, pretty much formed the backbone of Bumi's identity. Bumi the power-and-freedom-to-do-what-he-wants-guy.

Bumi recalled how, though the young scribes had lived sparsely and with little cheer, Antius and the other adults had actually been rather well off. Antius had possessed a collection of rare books that was probably worth a fortune, while Bumi hadn't even been allowed to keep the desert iguanamundi he had caught in his room. Bumi wondered if the same was true of the airbenders. Though the young boys might not have had any worldly goods in their rooms, perhaps the mentors were secretly hoarding wealth in theirs. Bumi decided he would investigate.

The adults' rooms, as he soon discovered, were set into the cliff walls above the boys' rooms. They were hard to see from any sort of distance, being of an invisibly perfect sort of construction rather like the mausoleum, and Bumi had originally dismissed them as mere storage caverns. There would be a sick sort of irony if the one place he elected to check last had the clue he needed, but frankly, Bumi didn't see much danger of this. He simply wanted to see if the elder monks were as holy as they forced their students to be.

--

Bumi was torn between being very cross at the sick irony of finding the most important clue in the place he had elected to check last and very pleased at finding the clue at all. It turned out that the elder monks _were_ as holy as they forced their students to be, at least judging by the contents of their rooms. The rooms were slightly larger, it was true, but no more than was fitting their slightly larger occupants. Bumi still had to duck his head to fit inside. They were also similarly sparse, the most opulent object in the entire complex being an umbrella. Bumi had been somewhat disappointed to have not found any corruption on their part, but his disappointment largely evaporated when he found the letters.

In one of the rooms, in a carved wooden box that looked as old as the temple itself, Bumi found a small stack of papers. It became instantly clear that they were the property of the late Gyatso himself. There were a few by Pathik, but one in particular stood out.

It was from Aang. It was hastily written and melodramatic, the sort of thing every little boy dreams of writing whenever tensions at home run high. Aang was terrified. He had witnessed a meeting. He accused the world of not caring about how he felt.

_"It's too much,"_ he wrote,_ " I can't do this I'm just one kid! I can't be the Avatar anymore. I'm sorry. You will have to find someone else because I won't do it anymore. I am taking Appa and running away. Do not worry about me, I will be all right. _

_ --Aang _

_­_ Bumi sat on the bed and stared at the wall. This was the answer, then. The letter wasn't dated, but it had been at the top of the pile, only beneath a work-in-progress letter that Gyatso was writing to the head monk in the eastern air temple, warning him of the situation. Aang had run away at the last moment and thus was not present when the Fire Nation attacked. Aang had survived. Here was the solid proof Bumi needed. His friend _was_ still alive.

It was with a heavy heart that Bumi, letter in hand, climbed back down the cliff face.

--

That evening, as the sun slowly dipped below the endless sea of clouds, bathing the temple in red and orange, Bumi rejoined the Guru on his balcony. He had spent the last hour or so reading and rereading Aang's letter, strangely reluctant to accept his victory. Hard to believe though it was, though, his task here was complete. Unfortunately, he still had almost three days to kill before Tarka would return to give him a ride, so he figured he'd try to enjoy Pathik's eccentric company.

The Guru made no outward sign as Bumi appeared in the doorway. As before, his eyes were closed and his body folded in a meditative pose. Bumi watched him quietly for a few minutes before clearing his throat. The Guru's eyes opened.

"Oh. Hello again. Did you find what you were looking for?" Bumi nodded. He felt strangely compelled to sit and did so, imitating the Guru's pose with some difficulty.

"I don't know that I knew what I was looking for, but I found it," he offered, staring out at the spectacular cloud formations. Pathik nodded knowingly.

"Ahh… All too often in life this is the case. Understanding oneself is as difficult as any other challenge, and no one can really know the future. You cannot trust yourself to tell yourself the truth, and you cannot trust the world to behave like it is supposed to." The Guru laughed. Bumi, too, could not suppress his grin. His opinion of the Guru soared to hear him, an expert on the spiritual world which Bumi eschewed, admit the future's unpredictability.

"So if you cannot tell the future, what is it that you do, as a Guru?" he asked good-naturedly. Pathik laughed again.

"Sometimes I wonder that myself!" he admitted. "I am kidding, I am kidding. I am a spiritual expert, a translator of the world's spiritual energies." Bumi arched a confused eyebrow. "Let me explain…" the Guru continued, "There are many incarnations of the spirit world, and they mean different things to different people. You, for instance, choose not to assign any greater meaning to the world's happenings, which in itself is a valid form of spirituality." Bumi blinked in surprise, not only at the Guru's perception but at the idea that by being anti-spiritual, he was being spiritual.

"Many people seek to know the _truth_," Pathik continued, ignoring Bumi's confusion, "but that is a thing that no one can say, so each person invents his own. Speculation is an important part of spirituality, Bumi, as only with careful thought personal investment can you forge a special relationship with the spiritual world. A merchant will view the spirit world differently than will a soldier, whose spirit world will in turn differ from a sailor's. It is all a matter of perspective." Bumi nodded, seeing now where the Guru's train of thought was going.

"So what is your perspective?" he prompted.

"Very good question," the Guru said, holding up a long finger. "As a Guru, my perspective is to not have a perspective. Gurus must shed all unnecessary connections to the physical world. I can see the spirit world as it is, without a lifetime of perspective-altering events to warp its appearance. I see only the most basic and pure energies of the spirit world. By seeing spiritual phenomena that have never been touched by human minds, I can advise people of all cultures and beliefs. It is the unifying principles of the human spirit that I see." Bumi grinned as he took this in.

"So you know the 'rules' of the spirit world, regardless of how you choose to imagine it?" The idea of limiting the supernatural in some way, transforming it into a causal thing that was simply difficult to understand, was a very attractive possibility to Bumi.

"'Rules' may be a strong word, but essentially, yes."

"What are they?" Pathik shook his head slightly.

"You do not understand me, Bumi. I can teach you these things, but you cannot help but to see them through your own eyes. It takes a lifetime of work to shed your connection to the physical world." Bumi frowned, disappointed.

"Alright. So once you tell me the rules, they aren't true anymore?"

"That depends on how you interpret them," the Guru said with an infectious smile.

"Alright. Tell me." The Guru nodded solemnly.

"Very well. There is no more central truth than this. The physical world and its differences are illusionary. The differences between you and I, between this temple and the bottom of the ocean, between life and death, are not what you think they are. All of existence is a tangled web of threads. Fate and uncertainty, matter and energy, being and thought, all are represented. You are connected to every other thread in the universe, whether you realize it or not. It is in reading the connections that a Guru seeks to understand the spiritual and physical worlds." The Guru fell silent and smiled broadly.

"…that's it?" Bumi asked incredulously.

"That's it," the Guru confirmed.

"Wow. That _is_ vague." Bumi rubbed his head. "So let me get this straight; everybody and everything are made of strings, which you can only see if you don't shave or bathe." The Guru nodded pleasantly. "And these strings let you see the connections between different things?" The Guru nodded again.

"I saw that my own thread will eventually meet the Avatar's thread, and that the meeting will create a great pull in existence. It will rearrange many threads in its wake. What will happen when our threads meet, I do not know. When they will meet, I do not know. It is even possible that I will never see the Avatar personally, but I know with certainty that one of my actions will influence the Avatar, and thus the entire world, very greatly." Bumi stared out at the clouds.

"You were the one who cleaned up the temple and entombed all of the airbenders, weren't you?" he challenged after several minutes of silence. The Guru sighed sadly.

"Yes."

"You did not move Gyatso. Why not?"

"I had a vision," Pathik admitted simply. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"Alright, alright. I get it." The Guru smiled.

"And what of you, Oh Loyal Friend? What do you plan to do now?" Bumi withdrew the letter from his pocket and handed it to Pathik, who read through it briefly. The Guru nodded serenely and handed it back, as if it had confirmed his suspicions.

"Aang is still alive, and now I've got proof. He ran away somewhere. I've got to go look for him, I guess, but I don't have a clue where he might have gone." The Guru nodded knowingly and the two lapsed back into silence.

"You know," the Guru commented after a moment, "I have known the Avatar still lives for some time. When you arrived, however, I was sure of it. Your connection with him is… peculiar."

"What is it like?" Bumi asked in genuine interest.

"Your threads were together before. They have drawn apart over the years and grow very faint, very far apart, as time goes on. Yours, especially. It may be that the two will never meet again. When I see one, though, I cannot help but see the other. The two threads are not together, but they are nonetheless significant to one another."

"So they never come back together?" The Guru closed his eyes.

"I do not know. They affect one another but the connections are hard to see. Your threads are bound, however, attached by the loyalty you feel for one another. As long as that loyalty remains, the attachment will never fade. Aang's spirit will never truly leave you." The Guru extended two fingers and pressed them against Bumi's forehead. An image instantly formed within Bumi's mind. A flash of white yielded a view of the great temple on which they now stood. A peculiar sort of glowing strand traveled from the temple southward, broadening and fading as it extended out to the horizon. Pathik removed his fingers and the image evaporated just as quickly.

"Your connection is weak but it is there. Aang is to the south." Bumi was dumfounded. Never had he felt such an uplifting feeling. His mouth hung agape.

"Wow," he finally managed. "Thanks."

"You are most welcome."

--

Bumi spent the next two days at the temple. During the day he occupied his time by cleaning and other such chores. It turned out the airbenders did have larger cells cut into their mausoleum for dead bison, but the Guru had not had the means to move the heavy carcasses alone. Over a period of a few hours, Bumi carried the gigantic bones one by one into the appropriate cells and, after an Air Nomad prayer by Pathik, sealed the tombs. Following the Guru's lead, he did not disturb Gyatso's resting place in the longhouse. At night he would speak with the Guru about all sorts of topics (it turned out that, sans physical connections or not, the Guru was well-versed in a great variety of mayhem, and could teach Bumi just as many pranks as Bumi could teach him) or, when the Guru was busy meditating, plan the next leg of his journey.

Early in the morning on the fifth day since he'd landed at the mountain's shore, Bumi bade the Guru goodbye and began the slow climb down.

"Good luck on your journey!" the Guru called from above. "And remember that there are always many means to an end. The connections are not always what you think!" Bumi promised he would remember, though he failed to see what that had to do with his search for Aang.

He reached the bottom in good time and only had to wait about two hours before Tarka's sailboat materialized on the horizon. The tribesman and his son leapt out to help Bumi with his gear and, in mere moments, they were off again.

--

"So… Back to Gojirun it is," Tarka said to break the quiet once they were safely away from the Patola mountain range. The ocean was calm today, and Bumi looked up casually from the map he had been buried in.

"Actually, take me South. To one of the your cities." Tarka looked surprised. Nukti, too, picked his head up from where he had been leaning over the edge, trailing his hand in the water. Bumi merely smiled casually at them.

"Which city?" Tarka eventually asked.

"Doesn't matter."

"Well… You'd be welcome at our home any time, of course, but… uh…" Bumi waved a dismissive hand, interrupting the tribesman.

"I'll pull my weight," he insisted. "But I've got to get South. The Avatar is somewhere near the South Pole, and I've got to find him." Tarka's jaw dropped.

"The Avatar?" he practically whispered, as if the Fire Nation would appear and torch them for the mere mention of that word. "You know where he is?" Bumi looked at Tarka and Nukti's expectant faces and grinned widely.

"Yes," he said after a suspenseful pause. "Yes, I think I do."

--

A/N: Well, this was going to be a short little chapter, but once again my words got away from me. I'm always worried I don't have enough to say and then I end up saying more than enough.

I hope you like my portrayal of the Guru. He is one of my favorite minor characters in the Avatar universe, and I think he is much under appreciated.

So anyway, this is kindof still part of the transition period between Bumi's childhood story arc and Bumi's adulthood story arc. Very soon (I would say the end of the next chapter but I'm wary about making that kind of promise) the next major conflict will erupt.

Next chapter: Bumi's hunt for the Avatar continues at the bottom of the world

PS: Argh! I've been trying to upload this freakin' thing for days!


	12. XI: Bumi and the Water Tribe

Episode XI: Bumi and the Water Tribe 

94 years ago (Bumi age 19), late winter.

--

As they traveled, the air became cooler. Bumi's breath curled visibly before his eyes. Personally, he found the cold rather interesting. Having grown up in Omashu, where the four seasons (though revered and observed as per the world's religion) were practically non-existent, Bumi experienced a surge of glee every time he saw ice. Ice was a rare and expensive commodity throughout much of the world, rare even in the drinks of the most opulently rich, and to see it growing naturally on the sides of a mere fishing boat was an amazing experience. Tarka and Nukti stared at him as if he had grown a second head when he broke off a few icicles and put them in his lukewarm coffee. It tasted terrible, but the bragging rights he'd have later would be well worth it.

Bumi dangled his feet over the side of the boat as he stared at the cloudless skies above. They had left behind the endless mire of fog that hung over the Patolas' bases and everything was calm. The wind had not been to Tarka's satisfaction, but he and his son managed to manipulate the sailboat in such a way that it could take full advantage of even the minutest breeze.

Still, it took them six days before the first great berg slid ponderously into view (two days longer than it should have, or so Tarka claimed). The blue ice lolled about in the water like a gigantic beast, ignoring the tiny craft as it meandered past. Soon there were more bergs, great balls of ice that jostled about, forming eddies and rapids in their midst. Waterways formed and reformed as the icebergs collided with impressive blasts of ice-cold sea foam. The boat careened from side to side, but Tarka and Nukti maintained impressive control over it, making surgical adjustments here and there to keep it on its belly.

A spray of water shot past the boat, wetting Bumi and the canvas map he was currently poring over. Bumi shook his head grouchily and batted what moisture he could out of the map before hunching over it again.

"We should reach Imaux by this afternoon," Tarka said.

"Very good," Bumi replied without looking up from nor putting away his map. He was quite confident that Tarka and Nukti knew how to reach their own village; his mind was elsewhere. He was trying to plan his search. The southern landmass was, with the exception of the tenfold-larger earth continent, the largest piece of land in the world. From the eastern extreme to the other it was at least as long as Bumi's journey to Ojirun, but presumably there wasn't a swamp in the way to slow him down. Presumably Aang would be found at a tribesmen settlement; the boy was far too extroverted to have exiled himself all alone in the wilds. Luckily, there were a mere half dozen or so cities on Tarka's map, not counting the one that had been stricken through with a coal marker. Checking each of them and the spaces between them would be Bumi's first priority. Bumi traced out a path with his fingers, actually missing the cartographer of his map of the southern Earth Kingdom. At least that fellow had incorporated detailed topography data. It was anybody's guess how his search would go based on Tarka's map.

--

They pulled into Imaux that afternoon, as promised. The village itself consisted of a long row of sturdy hide tents and a larger domed building that sat along a twenty-foot shelf of ice. On the shore below, a miniature fleet of canoes and other watercraft bobbed up and down in the choppy water, each hooked to the ice with thin lengths of rope. Presently, busy blue-clad men in anoraks and mukluks occupied several of the boats; some engaged in gutting their caches of long, silvery fish, others in repairing nets, still others in untangling fishing line. They turned as Tarka guided his sailboat up to the ice's edge, but the cries of greeting died in their throats as they caught sight of Bumi.

Bumi ignored the tribesmens' response, dutifully helping Tarka tie the boat down before grabbing his pack, hoisting it onto his back, and disembarking. Nukti shouldered his and his father's gear while Tarka grabbed the three slick, meter long fish he and his son had caught while Bumi had been at the temple. Tarka and Nukti greeted the men they passed as they led Bumi up the carved stone and ice staircase that allowed access to the village, but their responses were subdued. Bumi sighed as he felt the fishermens' stares on his back. At least they weren't throwing eggs.

As he clambered over the shelf edge, Bumi was immediately struck by how very small the village was. To be fair, it was a rather small dot on the map, but if every settlement he came to was so little, his search could be over in no time. Bumi started to feel anxious. The village, though lacking the busy crowds he was used to, had a smooth rhythm to its workings, a rhythm on which he was imposing. Each person was working together with the sort of choreography born of thousands of years of practice, and Bumi could almost feel the errant ripple he was causing in their workflow. He did not belong here.

Neither Tarka nor Nukti took any notice of Bumi's situation, however, and immediately settled into village life. The boy split away, taking their gear towards one of the tents at the end of the row, while Tarka continued toward the larger domed building. Bumi followed the tribesman, and the two of them wound their way around to the building's rear, where a small fire was flickering cheerlessly. A trio of women, also bedecked in the purples and blues of their culture, were hard at work preparing the fish that were brought to them. Most of it was salted in small crates of spices, then placed on a wooden plank and cooked and dried in the fire. Here, too, the tribe's clockwork movements were apparent. The women didn't work hard, but they did work smart. Each one's movements perfectly complemented the others'. One even offered Bumi his first glance ever of a waterbender in action, pulling the oily juice collected from the fish into a leather bladder for storage. Tarka greeted the women respectfully and placed his three fish atop the small pile they were drawing from. One of them, the oldest of the three, stopped him with a growl.

"Three fish, Tarka? You were gone for weeks and you bring back only three fish? It is the harvest season; these moonfish won't be spawning forever you know!" she pointed an accusatory finger.

"I am sorry, Leutia. Nukti and I were distracted in helping a foreigner and could not fish the best waters. We tried." Tarka's shoulders were drooping sadly, and Bumi felt a (very slight) twinge of regret for having gotten him in trouble. At the mention of the foreigner, however, the three women trained their disapproving eyes on Bumi.

"You're the foreigner, then?" Leutia croaked, not hiding her dislike for him.

"Yeah," Bumi admitted, stepping forward.

"Well don't look so happy about it!" she snapped, causing Bumi to back up as if she had bitten him. Bumi raised his hands defensively.

"Umm… This is Bumi, a friend from the north," Tarka volunteered nervously, trying to calm the situation. "Bumi, this is Leutia, my wife Aksa," he pointed to a younger woman, who inclined her head politely, "and cousin Una." The third woman did the same. "I have offered him hospitality here." Leutia snorted.

"He will have to speak to Chief Anasheuk," she warned. Tarka nodded.

"Of course. I will take him there." This seemed to satisfy her, as after another snort, she returned to her work.

--

Chief Anasheuk, not surprisingly, spent his time inside of the village's great kiva. Tarka had not offered Bumi any choice in the matter and so now Bumi stood off to one side, arms crossed in frustration, while Tarka and the chief exchanged pleasantries. The two spoke at length. Apparently Tarka and Nukti had been away from the village for some time, hunting, traveling, selling, fishing, and traveling some more. Bumi would have expected the chief to insist on an explanation of his presence, but it turned out he was the only tribesman not interested in him. Anasheuk sat on a pile of furs and listened to Tarka retell the experiences of his trip from the beginning, nodding and laughing with the younger man.

Bumi rolled his eyes and sighed in irritation a few times, but no one seemed to be paying attention, so he tried to distract himself by looking around the room. The kiva's walls were made of black stone, while a scaffolding of wooden beams supported a canvas roof. A small hole in the center of the ceiling allowed the smoke from the room's small firepit to escape into the cold outside air. Dozens and dozens of animal pelts lined the walls, insulating the room such that it was surprisingly warm and comfortable. All manner of impressive traditional art was on display; ivory spears, battle armor, masks, boomerangs, a polar dog skull, a shark tooth the size of a battle shield, and more. Bumi drew his fingers across a woven blanket depicting some sort of thrilling battle with a giant fish, feeling the warmth in its dense fibers.

"So… An Earth Kingdom man comes to us for help…" the chief's voice rumbled through the kiva. Bumi turned. The chief had stood to his full height and, with the great heaping of blue coats on his shoulder and his shaggy head of beaded hair, bore an uncanny resemblance to a platypus bear. He seemed to fill up the domed room, and the fire that flickered at his feet gave him an undeniably mighty presence. Bumi scoffed. The man's obvious attempts to intimidate him only made him more determined not to buckle.

"I came to _Tarka_ to help, because he had a boat that the Fire Nation wouldn't shoot down. I come to _you_ for nothing." The chief frowned at the disrespect, as did Tarka behind his left shoulder.

"Nothing?" the chief asked rhetorically.

"I am looking for something very important. The Avatar. I will pay for lodgings while I use your village as a home base." Anasheuk stared piercingly at him.

"With gold coins, then? Tarka says you are a wealthy man." Without removing his eyes from the chief's face, Bumi dug into his bag, produced the tightly wrapped bag of money, and tossed it on the ground in front of him with practiced bravado. The bag fell open and revealed its glimmering contents for all to see. The orange glow from the fire sent a thousand reflections dancing off of the kiva walls. Tarka and the two men that had previously been repairing a hole in the wall gaped at the money, eyes at least as bright, but Anasheuk did not seem impressed.

"Hmm… No thanks," he said, and sat down. "Tarka will take you back." Bumi was shocked. Money had failed him? What was the world coming to!? He narrowed his eyes and stared at the chief with scrutiny, attempting to catch him in a bluff. The chief did not seem to notice his confusion, and idly sipped on his tea. After a moment, Anasheuk looked his way and feigned great shock.

"What? You're still here?" he patronized. Bumi just stared at him.

"…What?" he finally managed. The chief smiled.

"Ahh, I see. Our lodgings are not for sale, Bumi. Tarka tells me you were most generous with your funds in Ojirun, and for that our village is thankful. The truth remains, though, that what you paid for your ride is more than we can safely spend. If Tarka here shows up in a Fire Nation controlled port with this kind of money, the Fire Nation will be all over him. It will last us several seasons, and so again I thank you, but I must turn down your offer." The chief's face was decidedly self-satisfied. Bumi looked expectantly at Tarka, who confirmed the chief's words with a solemn nod.

"Tarka will take you back," Anasheuk assured him again. Tarka moved to do just that, but Bumi held up a hand and stopped him.

"Alright, alright, wait," he said, "I can tell when I'm being led. What do you want from me?" The chief's smile became more pleasant.

"Life at the South Pole is hard, Bumi," he told him. "There's little eat, little to build from. Ever since the Fire Nation's attack, things have been harder still. We cannot let someone live in our city who does not contribute." Bumi didn't like where this was going. "If you are living as one of us, you will work as one of us." Anasheuk quieted and watched while Bumi contemplated this offer.

"My search here is very important, you realize," he whined. "If I'm busy all day paying for myself, I'm not likely to get much _searching_ in." Anasheuk didn't answer. "How hard is working as one of you?" Bumi asked.

"Life at the South Pole is hard, Bumi," the chief repeated. Bumi tried to imagine a loophole, but could not see one, at least not one that applied at this instant. For the time being, agreeing was pretty much his only option. He could try to weasel out of it later. Bumi sighed audibly.

"Fine." Chief Anasheuk clapped his hands together with finality.

"Very good. You can start by helping Eniki and Lisut put in the new roof." The chief took another sip of his tea while Bumi picked up his rejected money. Bumi dug his heels in only slightly as he followed Tarka out of the room.

--

"Do I really have to do this?" he demanded of a very angry-looking Tarka the instant they were outside.

"Yes. Yes, you really have to do this," Tarka insisted. "You showed great disrespect in there, Bumi. You told me you'd pull your weight, or I wouldn't have brought you here. If you want our help, you've got to keep that promise."

"But by 'pull my weight' I meant 'pay you to put up with me not pulling my weight'!" he whined. Tarka led him to a huge pile of flat black flagstone.

"Tough. Now you've promised the chief, too. You're stuck."

--

And so Bumi found himself spending the afternoon (minus the time it had taken him to run out of clever excuses) atop the kiva, compressing the simple rock shingles into the sticky layer of tar he and the other two tribesmen assigned to the task had applied. It wasn't hot outside, at the very least, but the tar had thoroughly stained his clothes and clung stubbornly to him in handicapping clumps.

In truth, Bumi was a spectacular choice for this particular job. Being an earthbender, and perhaps more importantly an earthbender who recognized that he'd have to make some sacrifices to get what he wanted, Bumi could do the job of three men. This left Eniki and Lisut with very little to do, as Bumi, despite his earthbending limitations, could carry a half ton of stone on his back with little effort, could cut the flat stones into suitable shapes without the use of an axe, and could hammer them into place without a hammer. Bumi did so well, in fact, that the two of them abandoned him fairly early on, promising to return at sundown.

So Bumi worked alone, hefting the brittle black flagstone atop the roof in great stacks, collecting a bucket of tar at a time from the bubbling cauldron on the other end of the village, smacking the rocks into shape, and otherwise getting thoroughly sticky and exhausted. From his vantage point he could spy Eniki and Lisut sitting on barrels down at the shoreline, helping about three others in patching up damaged sails. It looked like comparatively light work to Bumi, though, to their credit, the two managed to goof off in rhythm with the rest of the tribe, so it didn't stand out. The sun was low in the sky; Bumi guessed it would be thirty minutes, or at most forty minutes, until sundown. He continued his task.

About halfway through the roof's installation, Bumi discovered a different way to align the rocks, in broad, overlapping spirals, that was vastly stronger than the linear pattern he had been instructed to use. With his design, the entire roof moved as one piece, distributing pressure evenly across the multitude of tiles and resisting damage. His pattern was complex and took a lot of careful counting, but it was an improvement. Bumi finished the second half with the spiral design.

Hours later, Bumi slid the last tile into place and looked up from his work. The village had quieted; the people, previously working hard, were nowhere to be seen. Bumi strained his neck; Eniki and Lisut were no longer at the shoreline. What was going on? The sun hung tauntingly above the horizon. Realization dawned on him and he pitched the half-full tar bucket off of the roof in rage.

--

Bumi hobbled angrily out into the midnight sun. He muttered a steady stream of obscenities, stopping every few steps to scrape his sticky boots against the ice. The _pingnu_ tribesmen had tricked him. _Sundown indeed_, he thought. It was late summer this far south; the sun wouldn't set for another week at least. He had been left working on their blasted roof, all alone, for hours. Bumi strongly suspected their blasted chief had put them up to it. It was Iier all over again. Once again, it was one thing to have the children (metaphor for the quite full grown Eniki and Lisut) attack him, but quite another for the adults (metaphor for Anasheuk) not to do anything about it, worse yet to agree with it. They were all standing in his way, purposefully delaying his task to exploit him for free labor. They probably figured because he was bigger than them, he must necessarily be dumber than them too.

Bumi spat dismissively on the ground. If they were going to treat him this way, he would just move on by himself. How hard could it be? The next village on the map Tarka had given him was only thirty-odd miles away; perhaps they would be more hospitable. Bumi ignored the footsteps he heard coming up behind him. It was Nukti.

"Where are you going?" the boy asked. Bumi did not turn around.

"To the next village. Don't worry, I'll be back by _sundown_," he said bitingly.

"You'll freeze to death. You don't know how to survive out here." Bumi scoffed.

"I'll figure it out. Funny thing, that time when I said I was a mad genius, I wasn't joking." Nukti continued to follow him.

"You said you would teach me how to pickpocket," Nukti accused.

"_You_ said I'd be welcome in your village." Nukti grabbed the back of his shirt. Bumi shrugged the boy's grip off, but turned to face him.

"You _are_ welcome here. You just…" The boy fought for verbal purchase. "Eniki and Lisut… they're just being jerks. Nobody has visited us since the Fire Nation attacks. It's going to take a while for people to trust you." Bumi turned back and continued on his way.

"I don't need their trust, especially if they're going to make me wait for it."

"You can't get to Mi'qmak that way. You'll hit the mountains; you have to go north around them." Bumi stopped, clenching his teeth. He recalled the map to his mind. The route Nukti was suggesting was easily fifty miles, probably sixty. The boy seemed to detect his hesitance, and pressed his advantage.

"Come back. I'm sorry they treated you like that. The village is having dinner; Leutia cooked a king belugafish that Nunat caught today. You'd like it." Bumi slumped his shoulders in defeat. With a sigh, he gave up and followed Nukti back to the village.

--

When Bumi was perfectly honest with himself, he came to realize he had overreacted. The tribe had gathered inside of the kiva by the since-enlarged fire, and to their credit, none of them batted an eye when Bumi joined them. He was passed a section of the roasted belugafish (which he _did_ like, in fact) on a small piece of cleaned animal hide as a plate. It seemed they were not going to rescind on their promise to lodge him, at least.

Bumi settled into the most out of the way, antisocial corner he could find and watched the tribesmen. He made no effort to be included and they made no effort to include him, which did not bother him more than a little. Again he was struck by the synchrony of their actions and found them amazing to watch. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, all laughing and enjoying each other's company in the glow of a warm fire. Every person pulsed with a sense of togetherness. They clearly relied on and trusted one another in a way that Bumi never could. He understood, somewhat, why he had been so coldly received. They depended on family and trust to survive. His presence could only disrupt their curious synergy.

Some of the older ones began telling stories, whimsical parables and epics of their forefathers. They'd stalk around the fire's perimeter, waving their hands dramatically through the rising embers. Bumi sat quietly in the darkness, letting Anasheuk's tale of how the orca got its spot sooth his mind.

--

Despite having resolved to wake up early enough start his trek to the next village before he was given more chores to do, he was jostled out of sleep by an irritated Tarka. He sat up, rubbing his eyes groggily. The sounds of a village abuzz with activity could be heard through the thin walls of the tent that had been set up for him next to Tarka's.

"Time to wake up. Chief's waiting for you," Tarka said.

"But it's not even fully light ou-" Bumi paused. "Oh yeah." He shrugged and tossed aside the woolen blankets, then followed Tarka out into the brightness. The tribesman led him back to the kiva, where Anasheuk was staring up at the roof and rubbing his chin contemplatively.

"What time is it?" Bumi asked Tarka, stifling a yawn.

"About five in the morning," Anasheuk answered. "We let you sleep in, figured you'd had a rough day." Bumi frowned at him, but the chief was undaunted. He pointed to Bumi's handiwork. "Half of that roof looks different than the other half," he observed.

"Yeah, well. Chalk it up to artistic license."

"Fix it. Rip up that half and make it all the spirals," he commanded abruptly. Anasheuk and Tarka walked off, leaving Bumi to gape angrily after them. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth together, trying desperately to calm down. Shou had told him to choose his fights wisely ("It does not matter if you can take them," he had insisted, despite Bumi's pleas). He would gain very little from exploding at these people or their leader. They could help him, and would help him, whether they liked it or not. He would just have to be patient for now.

After a few minutes, Bumi had calmed enough to unclench his fists, and shortly after that, to bitterly scale the building and begin the task of scraping off the errant roof tiles.

--

It was well past lunch when Bumi had the last tile correctly repositioned in the sweeping array of spirals. Though he could manipulate rocks with uncommon strength, the tar, since frozen by the cold, was another matter. His fingernails were chipped and bruised from prying the tiles out of their stubborn mortar, and he ended up breaking tens of the stones he did extricate, requiring that he fetch replacements from a rocky shore about a half of a mile north. The sun skimmed mockingly along the horizon.

Though his limbs pounded with exertion, Bumi resolved to begin his journey as soon as possible. He returned to the trio of women behind the kiva, who were once again busily working to preserve the fish harvest, and though the old crone that led them stared at him in an unkind fashion, she obligingly prepared a lunch of moonfish and sea prunes for him. Bumi took a seat on a nearby barrel to eat.

He had not yet had occasion to try the prunes when he was interrupted.

"Get up, Earthy." It was Lisut, who no longer wore the look of false sincerity he had used to trick Bumi the previous day. His sharp, angular face was drawn in a sneer as he prodded Bumi in the shoulder. Bumi was not currently in the mood. He held up a finger while he chewed his meal (with excruciating thoroughness). Finally he swallowed, cleared his throat, and mockingly took another bite.

"Nnn… Ummb eeying," he informed Lisut through his current mouthful. The gaunt tribesman, unconvinced, stared daggers at him.

"Tasan found another spawning school, caught a few netsfull," he explained to an unconcerned Bumi, "we need everyone to help unload the boats so we can catch some more." Bumi continued to chew nonchalantly.

"Not my problem," he said when he paused for air, "Ask me again at sunset." He tried one of the prunes and, finding it wanting, spat it back onto his canvas 'plate'. Satisfied, he wadded it up around the remains of his meal and handed it to Lisut.

"I already did the roof. I have things to do," he said simply, and walked away.

"You jerk," Lisut spat. "Chief said everyone, not everyone except for the arrogant Earth Kingdom bastard who thinks he's too good for us. Money or not, you have to listen to us while you're here, so get down there and get to work." Bumi continued to walk. He heard Lisut growl and approach.

"I said-" Lisut did not get a chance to finish his sentence, as hardly a second after his hands made contact with Bumi's back, he found himself wheeling over the taller boy's shoulders with an elbow in his gut. Lisut struck the ground with a heavy 'oof'. Bumi stared condescendingly down at him.

"And _I_ said I have things to do. See you later." Bumi marched off, leaving Lisut and his pride bruised on the ground.

--

Five minutes later, Bumi was approximately five minutes away from Imaux village, gear heaped on his back and face buried in his map. It was becoming increasingly clear that the tribesmen had no real intention of helping him, and indeed, that they had every intention of exploiting his labor for as long as they could. The best he was going to get from them was the certainty that Aang was not among them. He had to get away.

His best bet remained Mi'qmak village, even with Nukti's mountain range supposedly in the way. He measured the route out as best he could with his fingers; it looked to be about fifty-eight miles, but one could never tell with these inferior Water Tribe maps. He felt well prepared for a lengthy walk, having traipsed across so many miles already. If he was determined (which he was), he could arrive there the following night and hopefully they would be more reasonable than their Imaux brethren.

Bumi folded the map and slid it into his parka. With one final backwards glance at the lonely little row of tents, already dwarfed by the steady snowfall, he trudged onwards.

--

Unfortunately, and much to Bumi's chagrin, the rules for surviving at the South Pole were different than those in the Earth Kingdom. All of his experience seemed to feel smaller and smaller with every step he took. The snow, which Bumi had at first presumed was the real foe in this region, was laughably peaceful. It continued to fall, persistently, as if to hypnotize Bumi into ignoring the enormous pain that was gripping his fingers and toes.

No, the real threat was the cold. Even beneath the thick fur gloves and boots he had purchased, even retracted as far as they would go into the sleeves of his parka and pants, Bumi's extremities began to feel ice-hard (he had initially labeled them 'rock-hard', but shortly thereafter rejected that semantic because of the pain. He _knew_ rock. Rock didn't hurt this much.) Every once in a while the pain would grow worrisome enough that he would have to prod his fingers just to ensure they did, in fact, still work. The longer he went, however, the more force it took to verify this. After poking stopped yielding results, Bumi resorted to biting. A peculiar tingling feeling spread further and further up his limbs, heralding the subsequent spread of the painful, dead feeling.

Still, Bumi was not well known for giving up easily. He continued to trudge on. For a while he focused on the sound of his boots crunching against the permafrost, but soon the rocky shoreline soil turned to ice and he switched to thinking to ignore his pain. The wind had picked up; it whipped mercilessly across the frozen ground. Bumi was frankly amazed at how quickly the weather had deteriorated after he had left the village. He had been underwhelmed by the cold at first, but now that he was out and feeling nature's fury, he was beginning to think the tribesmen deserved their reputation as harsh survivalists.

Bumi plodded on, looking for the mountain range Nukti had mentioned. A peculiarly bad feeling in his stomach gnawed away at him, alerting him to the danger he was walking into, but he refused to consider the possibility that he was lost. The wind, snow, and never-ending sunlight painted the sky a uniform white color, so opaque that Bumi could barely see the ground at his feet (this was hardly a problem, however, considering that the ground at his feet was also unchanging; an endless platform of white ice that extended from horizon to horizon in all directions). The mountains had not yet appeared, but that did not mean they were not there. For all Bumi knew, they could materialize out of the blankness at any second.

Some tens of thousands of seconds passed without any such sudden appearance, however, and the idea that they would was becoming less and less comforting. Hours of walking through the cold made his body feel like lead and several times he seriously considered turning back, no matter how damaging to his pride it might be. The thought of failure, though, brought him new resolve and each time he merely redoubled his efforts, pushed on with greater and greater fervor.

Slowly, the icy ground gave way to rock again and, were it not for the ever-deepening layer of snow that muffled all sound, he might have again latched on to the crunching of his feet. As it was, though, he took the change in terrain as a good sign and continued. Soon the snow was so deep he sank nearly to his waist with each step, then had to expend considerable effort to climb back out. Still, he thought he could vaguely see something in the sky, the faintest of silhouettes, perhaps the first real hint of the mountains he sought. He struggled stubbornly onward, even well after he could no longer produce any pain no matter how hard he bit himself.

Bumi's ego was a powerful force and a massive incentive for him to continue, but there came a time when all of the arrogance in the world could not help him. The idea of failing in this trek and returning to Imaux, which had flitted in and out of his mind with steadily increasing bite, was seeming less and less repulsive with each laborious step. Bumi was tired and, whether he wanted to realize it or not, in way over his head. A little voice in his mind told him to turn back now, but it was largely drowned out by the howl of the wind and Bumi's colorful cursing as he tried ineffectually to scale a large snowdrift. He started up again and made it nearly to the top before slipping, rolling down its bank, and ending up imbedded up to the hips in its side.

Bumi punched the snowdrift and shouted an incensed warning to the planet before, finally, giving in. He slumped down and rested his head on the snow, so cold now that he could hardly feel the brutal sting on his face. He was so very tired, and longed to rest. He pondered fleetingly the idea of merely falling asleep right there. Would he freeze? His body drowned out the questions. He would not freeze. Not when he was feeling so very warm already. After a few minutes further thought (however muddied and delusional it was becoming), he made up his mind and reached back to remove his backpack for use as a pillow.

When he lifted his arm, though, his eyes caught sight of a bit of exposed flesh between his glove and sleeve. The skin was blackened and shriveled with a diffuse luster like that of polished stone. He cried out in surprise and attempted to get a better look, but was immediately disoriented and fell backwards. He slid several feet down the snowy slope like a drunken toboggan before coming to a stop. Bumi's mind worked furiously behind the slushy blanket that had fallen over it. Something was wrong with him. His movements were unstable and clumsy and his vision swam as if he were intoxicated (Bumi never drank after the incident in the _pingnu_ bar, but he had spent enough time in bars to know what drunkenness looked like). He felt warmer and more comfortable than was at all reasonable and he longed to simply pass out on the snow, but Bumi's formidable intellect, subdued though it was, was not about to let the black patch of frozen skin go unheeded.

With considerable effort, he came to the conclusion that he would rather be under the snow than above it. Though his body promised him sweet, sweet unconsciousness, he rose and began to dig, shoving away small handfuls of snow with his gloved hands. He worked very slowly, stiff-limbed and dysfunctional, but very steadily managed to burrow through the cold. Eventually he had the presence of mind to try to form some digging tool and, after a few minutes of ineffective fumbling, managed to draw the machete from his backpack. Its broad blade served as a suitable trowel and he finished the rest of his shelter rather faster. He dug a narrow trench deep enough to stand in, then carved a shallow bed out from one of the walls where he could sleep without worrying about the cave collapsing on him.

Bumi's head was swimming as he finally dragged himself into his impromptu snow cave, huddling into himself as best he could. He tried to maintain consciousness long enough to make a fire but was distracted by the blackness he could see on his hands and the sudden realization that he might never muster the strength to climb back out. He blacked out with the flint clutched in his stiff fingers.

--

Bumi awoke sometime later to the smell of seasoned porpoise meat. His stomach managed more alertness than he did at first and growled in complaint. Before even opening his eyes, Bumi managed to conclude he was not, in fact, dead (porpoise was neither good nor bad enough to be part of a fitting afterlife), though neither was he still in his snow cave. As he highly doubted he had left it under his own power and then forgotten, he concluded some human or hungry animal was to blame. A cursory flexing revealed that all of his limbs and digits were still intact, so it was probably a human.

Thusly informed, Bumi opened his eyes and sat up as best he could. He immediately felt dizzy, and the pleasant warming sensation still filled him with a giddy sort of high. He was in a Water Tribe tent, resting atop a pile of pelts beneath an ivory mobile. The cloth walls flapped slightly in a thin breeze, nothing like the whipping gusts he had encountered on his journey.

"Porpoise?" a voice asked suddenly and a bowl of meat materialized before his swirling vision. Bumi accepted it unquestioningly and wasted no time in gobbling it down. The meat's overpoweringly spicy taste felt good and his body and mind felt immediately clearer. After several minutes of silent eating, he turned to look at his roommate.

Chief Anasheuk sat cross-legged to his side. Bumi pulled the last few pieces of meat with his hands and wordlessly proffered the empty bowl, which the chief took without complaint.

"You are feeling better then?" Bumi lifted one of his hands before his eyes and flexed his fingers experimentally. The black patches were gone (replaced, now, with grease from the porpoise meat) and, though he felt a bit weak and he tingled all over, he did not appear to have sustained any lasting damage.

"I suppose I am," he admitted, rubbing the stiffness out of his knuckles. The chief looked on dourly.

"Far be it from me to counsel a man from the Earth Kingdom, but methinks there might be a lesson to be learned from this experience." The chief eyed Bumi slyly, who narrowed his eyes in thought. He had the niggling suspicion the chieftain was right.

"Am I to take it one of you rescued me, then?" Anasheuk nodded.

"We went searching as soon as the storm hit. Lisut and Owak found you and brought you back to the village, where Aksa healed your frostbite." Bumi bunched his fist up again in remembrance of the black frozenness and in frustration at having been saved. He supposed technically it was a good thing, but it was hard to look on it that way from the safety of a warm tent. He rolled his eyes and tried to change the subject.

"Where was I? How close to Mi'qmak?"

"Some miles off, I'm afraid. You managed to take yourself entirely too far south." Bumi frowned, disappointed.

"I feel like I've been sat on by a bison," he said, rubbing his head. The chief chuckled genuinely.

"That's the hypothermia. To your credit, you got a lot farther than we thought you would. And the snow burrow probably saved your life. No doubt you've gained a certain appreciation for southern survival." Bumi glared at him.

"Appreciation wasn't the word I was going to use." The chief smiled and patted Bumi's knee before standing.

"Your gear has been cleaned up and Aksa says you're healthy enough to work, so I want to see you down by the dock in five minutes." He made for the door before stopping. "Oh, and Bumi? That whole lesson thing? Think about it."

Bumi grumbled as he reached for his parka.

--

Anasheuk had clearly trusted Bumi to know the lesson already, which was something along the lines of 'you can't leave here without our help so you'd might as well shut up and do as you're told' (the chief probably wouldn't have phrased it quite like that, but that was the lesson's bottom line, as far as Bumi was concerned). Though he was determined to take it in stride (at least outwardly), Bumi was deeply frustrated with himself (and the innocent tribesmen) for his failure. Though they had not technically done him any real wrong, Bumi did not overmuch care for the idea of being toyed with. Indeed, it seemed as though the tribesmen were happy he had gone off and nearly died; they thought it would placate him. Now he knew how much he needed them and would behave.

Well, if they thought they could beat Bumi that easily, they were fools. They were tricky opponents despite their bashful non-threatening personas and Bumi had underestimated them, but no longer. It was true, Bumi needed them, and indeed he would behave, but only because he now saw it was his wisest option, the easiest way to get what he wanted. He would fake the respect that they craved so much and eventually he would get what he wanted. It was just a matter of paying with the right currency. Bumi's spirits rose a little when he phrased his defeat this way. Now he had a new plan. He was back in control. Thusly reenergized, he quickly dressed and exited the tent.

Imaux was, as before, bustling with graceful activity. His first few bracing breaths of cold air felt refreshing and Bumi felt his fuzzy mindlessness dissolving. He decided his first act of good faith would be some sort of reconciliation with his rival-turned-savior. He found Lisut, his monstrous polar dog Owak standing obediently at his side, on the outskirts of the village. The gaunt tribesman still sported a bruise from where Bumi had pushed him into the ground and was clearly preparing himself for an argument but said nothing as Bumi tossed a pilfered piece of the porpoise meat to Owak, who gobbled it up greedily, all offences forgiven. Bumi rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably as he grappled with his next words, made bashful not by Lisut's stare but by Anasheuk's, which was no doubt fixed on him, making sure he cooperated. He mentally braced himself, reminded himself that he would have to fake a little respect if he ever wanted the tribesmens' aid.

"So, uhh… You saved me, eh?" he started finally.

"Yeah," Lisut answered, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Well… good job," Bumi offered then, after an awkward silence that told him he had not said enough, added "and thanks." The barest hint of a smile actually appeared on Lisut's face before he drew it back into an impassive expression. He shrugged.

"It was nothing. Happens all the time. Novice travelers get stuck, gotto save 'em." Bumi bit his tongue to help him resist the urge to punch Lisut in the face for the use of the word 'novice'. His plan seemed immediately less bearable, but he managed to excuse himself without instigating any further confrontation. He had to stay the course.

As per Anasheuk's orders, Bumi did report to the docks, where he was quickly put to work waterproofing an old boat. He sat on the ice, painting a thick layer of tar on the boat's hull and grumbling about his situation. Tribesmen worked studiously amongst the shorelines, each one attending to his own chore. Thankfully, they did not seem to take any special notice of his presence, nor make any mention of his near death, a fact which Bumi greatly appreciated. He was already losing patience with faking good humor and felt hardly in the mood to deal with their jeering stares.

--

Though he had been an outdoorsman since only recently, Bumi had already developed a few general philosophies regarding how one could best survive in the wild. He had learned the hard way how important understanding your route was, how vital it was to avoid becoming sick, how very much a person's life could depend on reading the world's signs, however slight they might be. Regardless, his wisdom came very much from an Earth Kingdom perspective. Bumi viewed any survival challenge rather like he would any other; he would prepare what he thought he could prepare, face the problem head on, and use his brain to overcome anything extra that surfaced. To Bumi, nature was very much an opponent, and defeating her was simply a matter of outthinking her.

Bumi quickly came to understand that the Water Tribe did not view things this way. To an ignorant person, it might seem that living somewhere so unchangingly harsh was simply a matter of finding a lifestyle that took the great cold into account and found ways to conquer it. While this was certainly also true, the four seasons were not, as Bumi had initially suspected, 'cold, frigid, freezing, and subzero'. The important thing to note was that the southern landmass was not, by any means, 'unchangingly harsh'. It was changingly harsher with each passing hour. What to Bumi would be viewed as a great foe to be conquered was, to the tribesmen, a way of life. They based their every action on their knowledge of their homeland's dangerous temperament. They did not attempt to outthink the progressively colder temperatures nor the progressively shorter days; they merely accepted them as a given and adapted their lifestyle around it.

The sun first set ten days after Bumi's arrival in Imaux. Though Bumi regarded that first half-hour of darkness as a refreshing callback to the world he had left, to the tribesmen it was a herald of hard times to come. Their work pace, already blistering by Bumi's standards, redoubled. Tarka came to awaken him earlier and earlier each passing day to assign him unloading fish or repairing houses or some other chore. Bumi stoically complied, but found it hard to muster the urgency that motivated everyone else.

In his free moments (which were progressively rarer), Bumi would venture out into the cold. He had since given up the idea of traveling so far to Mi'qmak on his own and had resolved to wait until the village had the time to spare an escort, but his first journey had been an intolerable failure on his part, a failure he felt obligated to rectify. To that end, he would select a random direction and start walking. He would go as far as he dared and then come back. The tribesmen had been worried for him and had even sent search parties during his first few tries, but after he had returned safely each time, they had quickly come to accept his suicidal behavior as part of his peculiar character. His journeys became longer and longer each time, and Bumi noted with no small amount of pride that what was once terrifying and arduous came quite routine to him now. It mostly escaped his notice that the same was true in regards to fitting into the Water Tribe way of life. The synchrony that he had seemed to so blatantly interrupt before was steadily growing on him.

The sun set for the last time some three months after Bumi's arrival in Imaux. It was something of a yearly event for the village and everyone used the very brief daylight to climb a nearby cliff and watch the final sunset. Bumi joined them, well aware now of the sun's importance (and thankful to get a break from the village's frenzied fishing schedule). They huddled together, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, looking out over a glistening, ice-cold bay to watch the last rays disappear. Many of the great shoals of migratory fish had already spawned and left for warmer waters. The last, hardiest of these would soon depart as well. The village had worked all summer to harvest as much food as they could. With their game and fish sources dwindling and endless dark descending, they would have to survive off of frozen fish jerky so salty it practically glowed for the next few months. It remained to be seen whether it would last the winter.

It was a testament to Bumi's steady osmosis of Water Tribe culture that he did not react in a more vitriolic fashion when Tarka told him that he would be stuck indoors for a few months. His tribesman friend looked genuinely apologetic, but Bumi merely nodded and shrugged. In truth, he had suspected this would be the case. Though initially he had hoped the winter would finally bring about the beginning of his long-delayed search for Aang, the threatening way that the wind howled outdoors was enough evidence that any journey in this weather would be suicide. He would have to keep waiting.

Though any outdoor travel was limited to hasty sprints between the village's buildings and the unending darkness seemed to suffocate everything, Imaux was no less inviting (and indeed it was rather more so) than it had been before. Without fishing and hunting trips to burden them, the tribesmen spent their time with their families. Some work happened still (spears, baskets, and the like had to be prepared for the summer's eventual arrival), but only at a casual pace. Bumi's carving experienced turned out useful indeed and, after a few brief lessons about what constituted a decent spear, he could produce them at no less a quality than his well-practiced hosts. Each night the village would congregate in the kiva and tell stories around the roaring firepit and Bumi would listen in while he carved.

The stories were a peculiar chalice of information. Early into the winter Bumi, (suffering from cabin fever), had been disappointed to find the village had no books to read. Despite all of his whining as an adolescent, Shou's insistence that he maintain his schooling had been a very good idea, and Bumi had a fondness for learning that served him well. Without any books on Water Tribe culture to memorize, however, Bumi had to satisfy himself with the stories. They were charming and quaint, not so technical nor useful as the knowledge Bumi generally preferred, but they were fun to listen to and Bumi committed quite a few to memory.

Throughout the long winter, Bumi did not volunteer any great niceties but was content in politely observing. The tribesmen came to appreciate his presence and, unbeknownst to Bumi, there was no longer any difference between his rhythm and theirs.

--

A/N: And he surfaces from his lengthy nap! But seriously, folks, been distracted with other projects for a bit. I could really use a new Avatar episode or two, but it's almost as easy to latch onto that new DVD cover thing (way cool).

Anyway, as you may have noticed, I managed to work the Water Tribe in a bit (what do you mean you missed it? Go back and reread!) While this story's setting will be predominately Earth Kingdom related, I did feel some exposure to the other cultures was prudent.

I swear, this muddy transitionary period will end at the end of the next one, which is well underway. Watch for it soon!

Next chapter: Bumi goes fishing.


	13. XII: Bumi, Fishcaller

**Episode XII: Bumi, Fishcaller**

93 years ago (Bumi age 20), early fall.

--

Bumi was good at many things; even, courtesy of his stay in Imaux, several crafts nearly unknown in the Earth Kingdom. When it came to the finer points of knot tying, however, he was what the tribesmen would call a "rockhead". He could tie a knot, sure. He had come across a few in Omashu, and tenfold more working on the boats the previous summer. To Bumi, though, a knot was a knot was a knot. As he sat near the back of a long fishing slip, staring dejectedly at the harpoon with which he had been wrestling for the past hour, he felt a little at a loss. He screwed up his eyes in concentration and traded his focus between his work-in-progress and those of the other men. What was wrong with his? Several times already he had shown it to Tarka and been gently turned away for it being unbalanced or too messy or something of that ilk. Each time, the other fishermen in his boat and the larger one braced just to their side had nodded in agreement with Tarka's complaints, clearly seeing some flaw lost to Bumi's eyes.

Writing it off as a Water Tribe thing, Bumi finally gave up on the harpoon and set it down in the boat. He turned sideways and leaned back to rest his shoulders on the great wall of ice to which the boats were fastened. He and most of the other men of the village were attending the first major fishing event of the spring. The sun was shining, low on the horizon, and though it was hideously cold by any other nation's standards, after the dreadful winter it felt quite pleasant indeed. Nukti was standing at the bow of the boat, a stern grimace on his face as he scanned the waters for their prey. He had been ice dodging a week previous and this was his first real hunt; he had to prove himself worthy of his newfound rank and title. Behind Nukti were his father, then Lisut, then Bumi, and finally Eniki bringing up the rear. Anasheuk headed the other boat and kept a close scrutiny on Nukti's every move.

Their prey was bull-oarfish. These bulky fish were among the only ones available, as the great migrating schools had not yet returned. The oarfish were coming out of the mucus cocoons in which they had slept for so many weeks to breathe and bask in the sun. They were large and delicious and their scales, larger and heavier than coins, were useful for many Water Tribe tools and ornaments. In fact, if the bull-oarfish weren't so dangerous, they might be the perfect prey.

As it was, however, oarfish _were_ dangerous and had to be approached very carefully. The twelve fishermen were each to prepare a harpoon and tether it properly to the bow of the boat. The leaders (Nukti and Anasheuk, today) would attempt to stab the fish solidly enough that it was killed instantly. If not, as was often the case, more harpoons would be thrown and a battle of sorts would take place. Bumi had seen a rather thrilling depiction of a giant bull-oarfish versus a team of Water Tribe warriors on a woven blanket hung up in the kiva. He hoped (mostly in vain so far) it was just as thrilling in person.

They had been out for a few hours. Early in the spring was not the very best time of year to hunt the massive fish but, with food stores dwindling (and everyone quite tired of eating five month-old moonfish), they were trying nonetheless. Though it was tiring work, the fishermen were content just to be out of their tents, having been stuck in the village for so long. At present, the sound of a deep, throaty inhalation roused their interest and, without hesitation, the boats were dislodged from the ice. The hunt was on.

Everyone was quiet except for Nukti, who whispered the occasional order to the paddling men. Bumi, too, was trusted with a paddle, which he did his best to use noiselessly. It was his first real hunt too, and though he tried his best to look uninterested, he could not help straining to look over Lisut's shoulder, hoping for a glance of their quarry.

The oarfish were discovered at the base of a blue iceberg, pulsing about beneath the surface. They were long and sinuous, something like a very fat eel with comically beady eyes, a flat head, and a glistening coat of green scales. They were difficult to see at first, as they had taken up residence in a massive indentation in the iceberg, which gave them a sturdy ice shelf behind which to hide. They looked lazy as they patrolled about ten feet below the water, but it was clear they were on alert for predators. Only occasionally would one shoot up to the surface, take a great gasp of air, and then descend again in a flash. The fishermen were dead silent as they watched the fish.

"Now what?" Anasheuk prompted quietly after a time. Nukti frowned.

"We can't try to hit them so deep. We will keep our distance and wait until they surface." Anasheuk nodded curtly, more as an acquiescence to Nukti's orders than as an indication that they were correct. They guided the two boats to a proper distance, facing the fish, and everyone sat down to wait. Nukti kept his hardened gaze fixed on their prey and his fingers gripped his harpoon so tightly it looked like it might break.

As secretly impressed with the idea as Bumi had been when they invited him, he couldn't help but think the maker of the blanket in the kiva had taken a few liberties with the design. It was not, contrary to the blanket's depiction, at all exciting. By the time the oarfish/fisherman standoff (if you could call it standing when one of the sides lacked any sort of leg) dragged into its second hour, Bumi had already diverted his attention elsewhere and was staring over the edge of the boat into the black depths. The other fisherman maintained their collective gaze on the fish, but their attention was clearly waning as well.

The water was nearly still; the winds would be arriving in the coming weeks, and Bumi's eyes sifted through it absently, unfocused and unseeing. Bumi often stared into the abyss much like this when he was in deep thought, and indeed his mind at present meandered from topic to topic, mostly centered on how things were going back at Omashu.

Bumi's stream of consciousness had just passed over wondering if any of his enemies had taken advantage of his absence (to be fair, Bumi didn't have any real enemies on a day to day basis, but he much preferred the idea that he did) when a peculiar glint roused his attention back to the deep water at which he had been staring. He narrowed his eyes, straining to see whatever it was he had seen through the blackness again. A few seconds later, another subdued flash peeked up from below, then another. An oarfish was patrolling about some forty feet below their boat, passing occasionally beneath a swathe of sunlight stabbing into the depths. Its shiny, armored body gleamed impressively.

Bumi stared down at the fish for a moment, then peeked around guiltily, staying as still as possible (and exercising rather more caution that was probably necessary). The men were not paying attention to him, most of them still grimacing at the fish beneath the ice shelf. Behind him, Eniki had fallen asleep, his body slumped over the paddle he still held tightly in his grip. The proverbial coast was clear. He checked again; the fish was still there. Bumi decided to amuse himself.

Ever so quietly, he reached back into one of his pockets and withdrew a small rock he had plucked from the shoreline one day. Black and triangular, it was the perfect shape for skipping (and Bumi would know; he was quite the king of rock skipping. Under the right conditions he could send a stone prancing merrily well out of view). He held the rock in his palm and sat up, attracting a casual stare or two as his movements started the boat rocking, but as the disturbance did not seem to phase the fish they soon looked away. Reaching into one of the animal hide sacks of jerky they had brought along, Bumi withdrew a large piece and leaned back, biting into it nonchalantly. After several minutes, when he was again quite sure no one was watching him, he quickly wrapped the jerky around his rock and secured it with one of the metal pins previously tasked with holding the bags closed. He bit off the excess and, with a final guilty sideways glance, plopped it into the water.

Bumi set to twiddling his thumbs, looking about at the surrounding icebergs as if they interested him greatly. He traded a wan smile with a man from the other boat who was looking at him strangely. After a moment, he faked a yawn and leaned back over the side of the boat as if he had returned to staring blankly at the water.

There was the jerky-stone, bobbing up and down at the surface by the boat's side. It would sink down a foot or so then, at a twitch of Bumi's fingers, come floating back upwards to repeat the process like a meat-covered yoyo. Bumi cracked his knuckles subtly and set to work. With a resolute twist of his wrist, he sent the stone skittering across the water's surface. It came to a stop some forty feet away, where he let it sink for a moment before yanking it up and sending it spinning off in another direction.

It did not take long for the fish that was still hovering beneath their boat to take notice. It rotated in place, following the meat projectile with its rubbery head. At first it did not budge, so Bumi let the stone drop deeper, more enticingly. Eventually the fish could resist the temptation no longer and it paddled hesitantly towards the bait. Bumi grinned ear to ear. He guided his lure around, sending it in long, graceful arcs through the water, the fourteen-foot long fish in tow. The fish's enthusiasm grew and Bumi had to work harder to keep the treat away from it.

He led his new pet in a series of increasingly elaborate maneuvers, always steadily pulling it towards the surface. It was wonderful fun and it kept Bumi distracted for many minutes. Bumi wondered what would happen if he flung the rock out of the water. Would the fish jump? He looked about cautiously again, but still no one had noticed his shenanigans. Shrugging, Bumi decided to try it. He formed a fist and the jerky-stone followed the curvature of his fingers, plowing towards its master like an obedient pet, monster fish in tow. Bumi could see the glint of the fish's eye as it put on a burst of speed. Its back parted the water and the sound attracted Lisut's attention. Bumi yanked his fist backwards, sending his bait soaring. The fish followed suit and exited the water like a muscled missile, catching the jerky in its mouth. Lisut only had a split second to let out a strangled cry of surprise before the fish's mammoth body came crashing back down.

The other fishermen were, needless to say, quite surprised when, after they had spent the past hour watching two oarfish too shy to move, a third and quite separate oarfish had the guts to land atop them. There was a loud cracking noise as the fish slammed down across the two boats. The two long watercraft were shoved quite resolutely downwards and there was a chorus of shocked yells as freezing water rushed in from all sides. Bumi and several others were thrown bodily into the ocean, while most of those who weren't were quickly expunged by the fish's frantic thrashing. Only Nukti managed to maintain his footing and was precariously balanced on the bow as the fish's weight lifted it into the air. With an impressive lack of hesitation, he raised his harpoon aloft and hurled it at the fish's head. The immense animal's thrashings came to an instant stop and it rolled limply off of the boats, which bounced back upwards, finally sending Nukti into the water with the rest of them.

Amongst the slurs of surprised curses, there was one voice laughing. Bumi could not help it. He had not intended to cause such a disaster, but his wish for a bit more excitement had certainly been answered in force! He treaded in the freezing water, snorting and giggling unabashedly. At first the other men glared at him angrily, but when Nukti joined in laughing, one by one they, too, saw the humor in the situation. The twelve men laughed hard, ignoring the cold, for several minutes, their guffaws echoing off of the icebergs.

--

There was much laughter and congratulatory shoulder punching, not only for Nukti but for Bumi, as the fishermen helped one another onto the nearest stable ice floe. The boats had not been completely destroyed (though one of them would need some major repairs), most of their scattered gear had been recovered, and, best of all, they had slain an enormous fish, more than large enough to feed them until the rest of their food sources returned.

They laughed much of the way home.

--

"A long time ago, in our grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's time, the tribesmen were one people," Anasheuk began. The tribe, bellies full of deliciously prepared bull-oarfish, was gathered inside the kiva for another night of storytelling. It was a special night. Not only had the tribe made it through yet another winter without casualty, but Nukti had led them to success on his first hunt and had proven himself a man. There were excited whispers of anticipation; the ceremonies that formally inducted members into the tribe were notoriously jovial. It was rare enough that the chieftain would tell the story of the tribe's origins, and Bumi and the rest of the tribe watched Anasheuk attentively.

"After many years of bickering, the tribes had put aside their difficulties and, with unified mind and purpose, built for themselves a great city of ice. Rival tribes, sick of fighting, no longer thought of themselves as Imauxans, Kuyans, Leutians, Avutans, but as Tribesmen. No longer were we the water tribes. We had become the Water Tribe." He said these last two words in a great, rumbling voice; clearly proud of the idea even well after it had collapsed. "No longer were we too busy scraping an existence out of the ice and snow while the rest of the world flourished; we had come to be respected. There was trade and friendship with our allies to the south," he gestured to Bumi. "With the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and…" Anasheuk's voice diminished somewhat, "the Fire Nation." There was an awkward silence in the room.

"It was a happy, peaceful time," Anasheuk said sadly, as if he remembered them well. After a time, he continued.

"It was not to last. The more grand and wonderful our ice city became, the more the ancient rifts between tribes came to widen. As we grew in consequence, there rose a need for leadership that had not existed before. In negotiations with other nations, who was to represent us? How could the needs of the tribes be met most fairly? As scattered families left to our separate business, there was no need for a ruler, but when all tribesmen lived under a single banner, these questions had to be answered."

"Avatar Kurei was summoned and with her help a pact was formed. Each tribe would shoulder an equal share of the responsibilities, and thus an equal share of the vote. No voice would remain unheard, and we could all share in success. The plan worked, for a time, but soon concerns arose. The Kuyans, for instance, were master hunters, men who could track an oxibou for weeks with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs. Was it not reasonable, then, to defer to them in matters of hunting?" Several people in Anasheuk's audience nodded slightly at his rhetorical question.

"This made sense, of course. Soon the system had changed. The old tribes would each govern that which they were most capable of, to the benefit of all." Bumi could see how this would not necessarily be to the benefit of all.

"Years went by. Decisions were made by the most knowledgeable that could be found and there was peace and prosperity. Soon, though, disputes between the tribes began to surface once again. Ours was no exception. The Ibikti tribe demanded to know why the Imaux barred them fishing belugars during their breeding season. Any Imauxan knows that belugars are vulnerable, slow breeding animals, vital to the ocean ecosystem, and can only be harvested very carefully and at the right times." Much of the audience nodded knowingly; they did know this. "But try explaining this to a people that had hunted birds to feed their families for thousands of years!" Anasheuk said this with a glint of humor in his eyes (which many in the audience shared), as if to eat birds was practically the most absurd thing they had ever heard.

"Of course, the fishing debates were not alone in plaguing the Water Tribe. There were fights about marriage rules, about foreign policy, about the design for gatehouses, about soldiers, fights about female waterbenders. Most dour, though, was the widespread belief by every tribe that every other tribe was taking away its power. Old wounds reopened."

"Again, steps were taken to save the crumbling alliance. Why, thought some, should all of the tribes have to outlaw arranged marriages when it was only one or two that were against it? Why not merely give to each his own? This seemed fair and it was done. Of course, this separation marked the end of that peaceful period of unity. The tribes became increasingly distinguishable and guarded. Some tribes hunted the belugars without check, driving their numbers down and disrupting the fragile balance of nature. It was only a matter of time before we divided. Several tribes, the Imaux included, boarded their ships and sailed to the other side of the world to build their own ice city, never to look back." There was another long, silent pause. Anasheuk stared solemnly at the floor.

"I prefer to think," he said at last, "that I am still a Tribesman, still very much attached to the Northern Tribe. It was a better time when we could get along, and if I have any wisdom for you, my family, it is that you keep these things in mind as you make your way in the world. Do not write off your fellow man for we too have behaved most foolishly in the past. Had we been on better terms with our sister tribe to the north, we may not have lost Naaluit. I would urge you, though, not to remember our city as the disaster it was when it was taken in war, but as the great accomplishment it was in peace. We are a great people and I hope that in these troubled times we will eventually come to remember that." Another silence permeated the tent.

Bumi scratched his chin and thought about the chieftain's words. It seemed that Anasheuk meant more than merely the Northern Water Tribe when he urged forgiveness and acceptance. Of course, he was probably old enough to remember the Fire Nation before it had withdrawn from the world; he may even have had firebending friends. Bumi suddenly thought of Kuzon, and realized he felt much the same way. Kuzon was certainly not to blame for the Fire Nation's attack, and yet he would be almost universally reviled if he set foot in the Earth Kingdom. Bumi hoped his friend was safe somewhere.

"And now, I believe, Uuoik shall share the thrilling tale of today's hunt!" Anasheuk said, immediately cutting the tension in the room. He took a seat near the front as Uuoik took the floor. Uuoik, a short, animated man with a great mane of hair, began to tell the story. He was the village's resident entertainer of sorts and was a master at the art of storytelling. When suspense was called for, his voice was so quiet the audience leaned in to hear better, enrapt in his words. When moments of action came, his voice seemed to roar echo from every direction. Bumi found the story immensely enjoyable, despite the many exaggerations Uuoik had infused into it. Nukti had not, to his memory, had any sort of triumphant gleam in his eye, nor any gleam except abject fear, and yet he had to admit it made rather a better story when he did. When the story had finally wound down, the audience clapped enthusiastically as Uuoik took his seat and Anasheuk resumed his position at the firepit.

"To that end, we are adding to our family tonight," Anasheuk said with a smile. He held out a hand to Nukti, who stood wordlessly and approached the firepit. The village cheered and applauded for him and the boy, though clearly trying to remain formal, could not mask his glee (which did not at all rival that of his parents, however). Bumi added to the racket substantially by pounding his fists into the ground, making the entire stone building rumble in approbation. Anasheuk raised his hand, quieting the crowd.

"Nukti," he said proudly, "you have proven yourself a man time and time again. You barely reached my hip when the Fire Nation attacked, and yet even then you were brave, an inspiration to us all. Ready to fight the whole Fire Nation alone, I think." He chuckled and much of the village joined in. "It is with great honor, then, that I finally get to present you with this." He dipped his fingers in an ashen paint. "The spirits bear witness to this, the mark of the brave!" he boomed and traced a symbol onto Nukti's forehead. There was a great roar from the audience as Nukti turned around, still beaming.

"And there is another…" Anasheuk said casually after a pause, and the tumult immediately tapered off. Many stared in confusion at one another, or up at the chieftain. Now that Nukti had become a man, there remained only four children, all of them nursing infants, in the entire village. The chief gestured to Bumi, who suddenly felt the village's gaze. He looked about in shock. The cheering resumed as the tribesmen to either side of Bumi pushed him to his feet and he blustered up to stand by Nukti. The crowd quieted again, managing to stifle their good-natured glee at seeing the usually immovable Bumi rent jelly-boned in surprise.

"Bumi… It was a shock to many, I think, to see you here. I myself would never have expected to meet another earthbender in my life. We have had many troubles in getting along, as people with such different backgrounds are often wont to. Indeed, there were times when I hoped the cold would finally defeat you, or you it, as long as it got you out of my hair, which, I deign to point out, has grayed considerably since your arrival." There was a round of subdued laughter. "Nonetheless, and quite despite our many trials, you have become a helpful and indispensable part of our family, and I am honored now to call you my brother, my friend. You shall always be welcome here Bumi, Fishcaller!" There was another great din of approval as Anasheuk reached to draw a symbol across Bumi's forehead. Bumi turned, grinning widely, and stood beside Nukti. In all his long life, Bumi never understood better the concept of family than at that moment.

--

The celebration stretched will into the night. Now that he and Nukti were official members, it seemed everyone in the village felt the need to speak their piece. They were bombarded on all sides by loud congratulations, handshakes, hugs, affectionate punches, and the like. Any other day, Bumi would have quickly tired of such behavior, but nothing could quash his unprecedented feeling of belonging on such a night.

When everyone had finally congratulated one another until they could no longer stand, they retired to bed. Bumi slept better than he had in a long time. He had, of course, long-since adapted to the feel of beds made of hide and the sounds of tents flapping in the breeze, but only now did he feel any personal attachment to them. As he drifted off to sleep, he swelled with more pride for the tribesmen than he had ever felt for his own nation.

--

The next morning, Bumi awoke under his own power, early in the morning. There was much work to do and, though he had always been studious before, his work ethic had been given quite a boost. He was fully dressed and out of his tent in minutes and immediately headed for the docks to see what work was to be done. Something strange caught his eye, however, and he stopped. He stared carefully at his surroundings, unable to put his finger on what was different about this morning as compared to all the others.

In a moment, he had it. Looking down at the tangle of boats at the docks, he could not see the usual buzz of activity. There were several men already at work, having woken up even before Bumi, but they were a mere fraction of the docks' usual complement of fishermen. Where were the others? He looked around again, spied several men standing by the kiva, and moved to join them.

Tarka and Nukti were piling supplies onto a wide wooden sled for some kind of journey, while Lisut adjusted the straps of the heavy leather harness he had affixed to Owak's muscular back. Anasheuk stood nearby, sipping tea as he watched them work.

"What's going on?" Bumi asked as he approached. "Nobody's down at the docks." The men stopped their work and regarded him. The chief looked at him with a sly grin.

"You want to work on the docks? That doesn't sound like you, Bumi," he said. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"No I don't _want_ to work on the docks," he replied truthfully, "but I was under the impression that you people like to eat, so I thought I might do it anyway. I'm a member of this tribe, you know." Anasheuk nodded.

"Quite right, and that is precisely why you are not working on the docks today. You are family and we could not call ourselves tribesmen if we let you search alone. You are going to look for the Avatar" It took a moment for Bumi to absorb what the chief was saying, but when he did, a wide, mischievous grin spread across his face.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" he said, looking from person to person. All four of them grinned along with him. After a pause, Bumi frowned.

"Well, we aren't going to find him standing around! Let's get going!" They shared in a laugh and set to work. Bumi ran to collect his possessions and helped load the sled up with everything they might need.

"Lisut, Tarka, and Nukti will take you wherever you need to go," Anasheuk told him as they packed.

"Anywhere?" Bumi asked without looking up from his work.

"Anywhere," he confirmed.

"Excellent. Thank you all for this." The chief waved a modest hand.

"That's what family means." Bumi scratched his chin and thought a moment.

"Does family mean I can ride the sled?"

"No."

--

The entire village watched and waved goodbye as they finally departed. They waved back and plodded on heroically, listening to the whistling wind steadily drowning out the cheers as they left Imaux behind. They traveled in a straight line, Tarka at the head, Bumi and Nukti behind him, and Lisut at the back, guiding Owak, who enthusiastically towed their gear-laden sled, his heavy claws and wide feet gripping the treacherous ground with much greater confidence than the humans' boots.

They made their way ponderously across the continent, fighting the cold which, in the early summer, proved considerably less pervasive than Bumi had ever seen it. They traveled only casually, though, owing to their considerable combined experience and the convenience of having a massive canine to carry most of the weight, made good time nonetheless. In the mornings they would awaken early and travel hardest, intent on leaving the area to evade any predators that may have been converging on their scent during the night. They would make good progress throughout much of the day. During the afternoon they would stop and find the most suitable shelter they could (on good days an abandoned cave, on bad days nothing at all). They would build a fire and eat, usually from the stores of preserved meat they had brought with them though sometimes the far fresher meat from whatever animals they could catch. At night (on those days they were lucky enough to have night), they would plot their position by observing the stars and plan out the next leg of their journey. They laughed often and shared many stories.

They moved clockwise around the continent, zigzagging from village to village. Of their first destination, the village of Mi'qmak, they found nothing more than scattered stones, ashes, and the remains of a few abandoned tents. Lisut grew furious at the sight and spent the next several days spitting curses against the firebenders, even after Bumi pointed out to him that the ash had been found in an old firepit and that nothing else seemed to have been burnt. Regardless of their fate, the village was quite clearly abandoned and so they continued on.

Lisut's fears about the fate of the Mi'qmak tribe proved unfounded when they reached Uipik, a hunting village shared between the two tribes ever since the Mi'qmaks had run out of resources. As the Mi'qmak had been, the Imauxans too were warmly received and offered hospitality. They spent several days there, mostly just sharing information. Tarka, who had a cousin among the Uipik, caught them up on everything that had happened to the Imauxans since the tribes had scattered during the Fire Nation's initial attack. The villagers told Bumi they had not seen a young airbender nor a flying bison and, while disappointed, Bumi's party left with high spirits.

They proceeded east across the continent's northern coast, visiting the three villages that sat on the massive Akimq Bay, traveled to Avuta on the end of a stubby archipelago, then followed the coast's gradual progress southwest. There they had to cross a tall chain of ancient, snow-covered mountains, dodging packs of wild polar wolves and the occasional bearseal. They visited hunting villages, fishing villages, villages that still managed to trade with Whale-tail island and its neighbors, even villages that depended primarily on the harvesting of edible lichen, but everywhere they went the story was the same; Aang had not been seen. In fact, many of them had not yet heard of the airbenders' sad fate, and Bumi had to repeat the story so many times that he felt more depressed every day. They did not give up, however, and continued their staggering path to every known Water Tribe settlement.

Many villages, like Mi'qmak, had been abandoned when food had proven too difficult to find. Bumi and his companions spent a full week sledding back and forth across a massive, snow-filled valley before they finally found the remains of their destination. They left the valley thoroughly discouraged. Several times they heard the howling of predators and Bumi could swear he saw the occasional pair of dark eyes peeking through the snowy blankness, but they were never attacked. This came as small consolation, however, as they came closer and closer to completing a full circuit of the continent without finding anything. Aside from the fact that the Water Tribes appeared to be disappearing left and right, they saw no direct evidence of the Fire Nation's gruesome attack until well after the nights had returned.

--

They had been climbing uphill all day. Bumi's legs ached from the effort and the winds from the nearby ocean whipped painfully. After months of travel they had nearly come full circle; Imaux was less than ten days' travel north. Their journey was almost complete and they had nothing to show for it, but Bumi was determined to finish. Their canvas map was almost unrecognizable under the many scribbles and notes they had written into it. Only one destination remained; the now destroyed capital of the Southern Water Tribe. They hiked now on a tall, rocky plateau, following the shore up to the great fjord where the city lay.

Bumi's companions had been silent and brooding for some time now, ever since they had left the last village and its vast, barren pastures. Even Owak had lost the spring in his gait and, though he plowed on with as much strength as ever, it was clear he missed his home. At first Bumi had assumed they were merely frustrated with their lack of progress. As their mood continued to darken day by day, however, Bumi imagined, instead, that the ever-lengthening nights were making them worry about their families back in Imaux. It was true, they had spent the entire southern summer away from the village, and no doubt their absence was felt. It was only later still that Bumi understood the true motivation behind their attitudes.

Up ahead, Bumi could see an edge resolving out of the fog. The icy ground that always seemed to stretch on and on came to an abrupt halt up ahead. His heart started to beat faster in anticipation and he hastened onwards. The sound of gullicans and skuabatross colonies emboldened him still more. Behind him, his companions were less enthusiastic, but trudged on nonetheless. Huffing and puffing, Bumi reached the edge, stopping just shy of the cliff's edge, and stared down to the view below.

The fjord stabbed into the continent like the strike of an axe, cutting a five hundred foot canyon into the icy plateau on which Bumi stood. Below, flocks of nesting birds obscured what looked like the site of an avalanche. Icebergs of a variety of sizes and shapes lounged about in the gentle water that pooled in the bottom of the ravine. Shattered ice and rock lie in piles, but compared to the rest of the continent's savage terrain, there was little to set this location apart. The fact that a great and prosperous city had once stood in that very spot could readily evade a casual glance.

Closer inspection, however, revealed a scene of great violence. Underneath the endless carpet of birds, crude shapes could be seen. Most were collapsed and unrecognizable, but Bumi could still see signs of civilization everywhere he looked. From this distance, it was hard to gauge the damage, but the silhouette of a shattered wall stuck out as a grisly monument to what had happened. Bumi heard footsteps behind him, but did not turn to look as Tarka joined his side. They stared down in silence for a moment.

"The once great city of Naaluit," Tarka introduced with a dour tone. No one said anything until Bumi broke the silence.

"We must search it." He looked to the others who, while hesitant, nodded resolutely. The fjord was many meters wide and formed a great barrier to their travel anyway; traveling down into the canyon and back out was by far the path of least resistance, at least as far as distance was concerned.

And so the four men and their canine companion began to work their way down the stone-carved path that wound its way back and forth across the fjord's southern wall. The travel was treacherous, not only because of the years of ice that had accumulated during the city's recent neglect, but also because the closer they were to the canyon's base, the more evidence of the city's final days they could see and (as far as Bumi could guess), the more vivid the tribesmens' memories of those days became. Bumi, attempting to respect their memories, did not voice his observations but rather catalogued them in his mind as he made them. From about halfway down the canyon's height he recognized several great gray expanses of steel beneath the water, no doubt the remains of Fire Nation warships, dashed apart by spires of ice that still poked from the shallow water. The remains of Naaluit's massive outer defenses became easier and easier to identify; the largest fragment, that which was once part of the single gatehouse, still bore half of the Water Tribe insignia, the carving well preserved in the cold. Beyond, in the flattened field that was once the city itself, Bumi could see wide canals, long since dried, flanked on either side by clusters of those ice dwellings that had not been destroyed.

They finally reached the bottom and traveled up the black, stony beach, picking their way past giant pieces of ice as they walked along the former wall's great length. Birds covered nearly every inch of the ground and squawked angrily at the travelers' audacity.

"They like to roost here; most predators cannot reach them," Nukti supplied helpfully as Bumi shooed a particularly livid skuabatross. Bumi turned and nodded his understanding, thankful that at least one of the tribesmen was willing to talk to him here. Tarka was quiet and Lisut was mumbling angrily under his breath. He supposed Nukti had been too young to have the same attachment to the ruin.

As they entered the city through a great gap in the wall, Bumi called out Aang's name. Of course, he didn't consider it particularly likely that his sociable friend would choose someplace so deserted, but he supposed it was possible. It seemed unlikely that the Fire Nation, at least, would return, and so it was undoubtedly a wise hiding place. Regardless of the likelihood, Bumi and the others spread throughout the city checking everywhere for any sign of the Avatar.

Though Bumi was reminded strongly of his search through the air temple, this was, in a way, worse. For one thing, he had not had a trio of depressed airbenders to shadow his steps there. For another, the air temple had been entirely reluctant to tell Bumi what had happened in its walls; Naaluit had no such scruples. He found dozens and dozens of bodies, both in warm blue parkas and heavy sets of reddish armor, the vibrant color giving way to a cold gray. Evidence of a massive attack and exodus was everywhere. Bumi even found a firebender's body (long since stripped of edible flesh) tangled up and impaled on a glittering wall of ice shards that looked as pristine as they must have the day they first extruded from the ground.

A few hours of searching yielded no sign of Aang, however, and the party started the trip up the canyon's north wall under an invisible stormcloud. It was only that night that Tarka and Lisut finally talked again.

"They attacked us without warning," Tarka described, his eyes transfixed on their campfire. "Twenty-five ironclads, at least five thousand soldiers, versus three thousand weaponless citizens. We knew we wouldn't be able to hold the city against them, not with our wall crumbling before our eyes, so the women and children made a run for it while the men held them off." He chewed absently on a piece of seal jerky they had obtained from a village down the coast. "We fought well, considering. Four of their ships never even made it to shore and we sank three more even as the firebenders poured into our city." Bumi remembered the sunken steel hulls in the water in front of Naaluit and his mind conjured a vivid picture of waterbenders shooting about in fishing boats, punching great holes in the firebenders' technologically superior warships. "It was too much, though. We had to retreat. Hundreds died."

"My brother among them," Lisut chimed in dourly.

"We had to run for it, we scattered in all directions. The tribes had mostly stuck to themselves when we lived in the city and so we all went our separate ways. We thought the firebenders would chase us down, kill us all like animals. Some of us wanted to go back and fight them, but Anasheuk forced us to keep moving. Said there was nothing left for us there, told us we had to be strong. The Fire Nation did not chase us, of course. Didn't think we were worth it, and they were probably right. A third of us died before we even stopped running." Bumi recalled how Nukti was the only child his age in Imaux. No doubt many infants had failed to survive the journey. Tarka's eyes looked glazed and unfocused.

"They took our city, burned our stores, killed our children… All just to get us out of the way." Bumi refrained from nodding in comprehension, but looked down at the ground with what he figured was adequate sympathy. The Fire Nation knew that the Southern Water Tribe, while not nearly so militant as its sister tribe, could nonetheless pose a threat to them. They had been an attractive target. With a homeland so devoid of resources, any setback would set their tribe back a very long time. There had been no need to pursue the tribesmen out of their city; as long as the supplies within the city were destroyed, the tribesmen would have to split up into tiny, insignificant villages or face starvation. It would be many, many years before they could mature back into a threat, and by that time the Fire Nation hoped to have dealt with the rest of the world.

Though he respected their brains, Bumi had a certain new distaste for the Fire Nation.

--

It was with heavy hearts that the four men returned to Imaux, having accomplished nothing. They had trudged many, many miles over the months, and were weary. Failure notwithstanding, they were greeted enthusiastically and cheered by the support of their families. They were given little time to dwell on their fruitless trip, and were immediately set to work. The village had spent the most important months of the year four men short and was several weeks behind schedule. Soon the fish would have departed, so there was a mad rush to collect enough of them to last the winter. Bumi, especially, worked very hard to help construct a second stone building for the village, largely avoiding the worst of his frustration by throwing himself into his efforts. In their rare moments of rest, the four told the stories of their journey enough times that, by the final sunset, Uuoik had woven them together into an epic enough exaggeration that even Bumi found himself enrapt at its telling.

--

Daylight had almost disappeared completely again when Bumi decided it was time for him to leave. He had searched for Aang to the south, as the Guru had instructed, but had found nothing. Indeed, Bumi admitted the possibility that Aang was still out here somewhere, perhaps alone out in the tundra, but it seemed unlikely considering the boy's character. Bumi refused to say he was giving up the search, but so many months away from his home had wearied him. He needed to return to his world. His search for Aang would continue, he assured the village, but not on the Southern Continent.

The winter night had already begun and the ice world was bathed in a purply sort of twilight when Bumi, Tarka, and Nukti finally departed for the Earth Kingdom. As their boat slid silently through the water, Bumi stared back at the dark shape that was the villagers gathered on the edge of the ice shelf to wave their goodbyes. He had maintained fairly strict impassiveness throughout all the farewells, accepting their blessings with good humor but otherwise curtailing the process wherever he could. Bumi was not very familiar with the feelings he was repressing, but he knew they could not be helpful. Staring back now, however, he could not help but allow himself a surge of pride for the Water Tribe and its people. He had come here and been immediately an outcast, completely incompatible with their lifestyle, and yet had grown to love them. He had seen the enormous damage the Fire Nation had inflicted upon them, and yet now he could see the silhouette of two heavy stone buildings where before only one had stood. The village was growing and prospering, however slowly, and Bumi knew that it would survive.

--

Bumi spent much of his trip home in a very grim mood indeed. While in a way this was because journeys back home were always difficult, Bumi's in particular felt quite laborious. It was fast approaching two years since he had departed Omashu, raging against his friend's wife and hellbent on recovering Aang, no matter where he was. Two long years had passed and Bumi had nothing to show for them (Technically, he had proven that Aang had survived the airbender genocide, but this came as little consolation during his lengthy sulking sessions).

During the boat ride back to Ojirun, the trio stopped at the base of the Patolas again. Bumi had scrambled up the side to the temple, hoping to get another reading of Aang's location (or at least give the Guru a piece of his mind for sending him the wrong way) but had found the place completely and utterly abandoned. Nothing had changed in the time he'd been gone, and Pathik was nowhere to be found. This failure had done little to improve Bumi's mood.

His difficulties had not ended there, however. Their boat had been overtaken by a Fire Nation warship some thirty miles off of the coast; it was only Bumi's money and the Fire Nation's apparent practice of not paying its officers enough that kept them out of jail. Bumi had itched to fight them at the time but, without a supply of earth nor any substantial weaponry, he had been forced to take the peaceful way out. Even now, the idea of the ship's captain spending his hard-earned money on booze and brothels brought the taste of bile to Bumi's tongue.

Finally in Ojirun, Bumi had bid Tarka and Nukti goodbye, promising insincerely to visit again soon, and the three quickly parted company. Ojirun had grown only more ramshackle and dirty since Bumi had last been there, and was clearly no longer safe for anyone but the Fire Nation. Most of the Ojirun's population had abandoned it and much of the city was entirely deserted. Bumi bid a hasty retreat, not bothering to stop for provisions. He passed no fewer than four fire nation patrols on his egress from the city, each time narrowly avoiding capture by concealing himself in the ditches by the road. He began to suspect it was a mere formality, as the soldiers bound for Ojirun had apparently just completed tours of duty and were hardly looking for any obstacle in their path home, but Bumi kept himself concealed anyway.

Once he got far enough away from Ojirun, travel was easier. A few days into his journey, Bumi peeled off his filthy parka and stowed it in his backpack for the first time in many months. He bought supplies in Chin village and then, following the road (he did not fancy any more trips through the swamp if he could help them), slowly, slowly made his way northward. Though the weather steadily improved and the warm expanses of dirt and grass were a pleasant reminder of his home, Bumi was unwilling to let go of his misery. His limbs were leaden with effort and his mind leaden with frustration and anger. He spent many nights under the starts cursing himself and bemoaning the many weeks it would take to reach Omashu.

And yet, when the grasslands and steppes began to give way to the hot, canyon-riddled scrublands distinctive Omashu's part of the world, Bumi could not help but feel his spirits start to lift. Every step brought him closer to his beloved city, and as it felt more and more achievable, more and more of Bumi's anxieties managed to trickle away.

--

It was early morning, and Bumi could smell the intoxicating aroma of curing meat. Real meat, too, not merely fish, but the sort of hearty foodstuffs on which earthbenders ran, slabs of pigkens, boarfers, and all sorts of semi-swine. There was rice, too, and the pungent aroma of lychi flowers, and the burn of Earth Kingdom coal. The smells, also, of thousands of lifetimes of thousands of people. It was the aroma, in short, of Omashu. The sun was bright as it rose higher and higher in the sky. It baked the ground furiously, but Bumi found it deeply refreshing. He would be home within the day.

And so it was that Bumi was in his most chipper of moods as he navigated the labyrinth of canyons that snaked their way to meet one another at Kawo point, wherefrom they traveled into his beloved city itself. This particular canyon, called Bent Woman Canyon, was small, hardly thirty feet across and twenty deep, but meandered on without exit for many miles in each direction. Bumi had left the road two days prior to enter the canyon system, hoping to benefit from its shade (and fairly certain he would not, in fact, run into a swamp again). Sturdy desert plants clung fiercely to the canyon walls, many of them shriveled in the day's rising heat. Bumi, however, was quite content, and padded along through the canyon's center, his bare feet sinking into the baked clay that was occasionally a riverbed.

A week earlier he had passed yet another village that had been razed by the Fire Nation and though he had little trouble pressing the grisly image from his mind, nonetheless passed the time maintaining an internal narrative about just what he'd do if he ever met the firebenders responsible. He was keenly aware that his feelings about firebenders had grown somewhat less pleasant, and did his best to categorically understand the change. While not necessarily open-minded, Bumi prided himself on being apolitical and objective. He did not begrudge people their bad attitudes towards the Fire Nation, but who was he to hate them unconditionally? What had they ever taken from him? No, Bumi would not fall into the trap of believing his own culture was in some way inherently right in a way that the Fire Nation was not. Regardless of whether his behavior was strictly rational or not, though, it was a great deal of fun to invest one's frustrations on a particular target, deserving or otherwise, and so Bumi did not hesitate to add even the most painfully hilarious punishments to his mental list.

As Bumi finally reached the canyon's mouth, however, a faint rumbling interrupted his mental monolog. Bumi looked around quickly but could not see its source. He scrambled up the rocky slope that constituted the canyon's entrance and stooped in the shadow of the canyon's namesake, a towering pillar of wind-whipped rock with a vaguely humanoid shape. With his hands flat against the ground, Bumi could feel a great symphony of vibrations bouncing through the rock. Something heavy was coming his way; Bumi could feel its path meandering towards him. A small strand of trees blocked his view, but he was fairly certain he did not want the strange object to see him, just in case.

Bumi rushed to the base of Bent Woman Rock. The sentinel's head stared impassively into the distance atop its thirty-foot body, solid and steady despite its precarious posture. Bumi rolled one of the large boulders at its base aside and crouched down in the resulting depression. He peeked over the edge and waited, feeling the vibrations grow stronger and stronger.

It was only seconds before the source of the tumult presented itself. Forty or so firebenders, all bedecked in ornate, horned armor, trampled their way around the trees. They moved in an organized unit, five men abreast. Two officers headed the procession; readily identifiable behind their rather better crafted armor. One was old and husky, knotted with muscle and barking orders back at his troops, while the other, younger and more slender, remained silent. The unit wheeled about gracefully, headed for the crossroads at Kawo point behind Bumi's right shoulder. From there it was anyone's guess where they would turn.

Bumi growled at the sight of the men as they passed him, oblivious to his presence. The time for internal monologs was over; the time for action was now! With surprisingly rapidity, Bumi's mind had concocted a plan. It was dangerous and risky but Bumi was feeling just ornery enough not to care. He grabbed a fist-sized rock and got to his feet. He bounced the rock nonchalantly on his palm, gauging its weight, then let fly and hefted it towards the older officer. His aim was true and the officer's shouting was cut off by the clang of rock against helmet.

There was a long, awkward silence as the man collapsed to the ground, instantly unconscious. The troops turned gawked at Bumi, who stood unabashedly next to the Bent Woman Rock. Seconds dragged on as they recovered from the shock. There was a shout.

"Get him!" The troops did not need any more encouragement than that. Streams of flame issued from their fists, scorching the earth where Bumi had stood merely a second prior. Their aim was formidable, and Bumi quickly leapt down into the canyon to escape the heat, rolling painfully as he struck the riverbed. He got to his feet and ran as fast as he could back down the canyon, more streams of flames erupting behind him. Bumi could feel the firebenders descending into the canyon to give chase even through the heavy pounding of his own feet.

As soon as he came to the first bend in the cavern, Bumi scrambled up the wall, hurled himself over the edge, and lay prone on the ground. He flattened himself out, willing the firebenders to overlook him. Luckily, his head start had been more than enough, and by the time the soldiers had charged past the corner, they found themselves quite entirely without a quarry. Peeking over the canyon edge, Bumi resisted the urge to cackle with glee. He turned and slowly crawled his way back to the canyon entrance and its towering guard.

Safely out of firebending range, Bumi stood and placed his hands firmly against Bent Woman Rock. He paused momentarily as he collected what strength and determination he could, then pushed with all his might. The tower of rock creaked in protest, quietly at first, but then ever so slowly, Bent Woman Rock bent over still further. The ground shook with Bumi's effort, and cracks spidered through the rock formation's base. The sound of a particularly large boulder tumbling down into the canyon seemed to alert the firebenders of their mistake, and Bumi heard a shout as they came running back, desperate to escape in time.

It was too late. With a final burst of exertion, Bumi sent Bent Woman Rock plummeting to the ground, taking much of the canyon entrance with it. Tons and tons of cracked rock thundered down, piling into a great barrier and utterly obscuring the ramp from which Bumi had climbed. Bumi laughed aloud as the first soldiers returned to find their only exit blocked. Their groans and shouts of anger were music to his ears. Clapping the dust off of his hands, Bumi returned to the unconscious officer, grabbed the man under the armpits, and dragged him back to the canyon wall.

"Here!" he shouted with patronizing glee to his thoroughly bemused audience, which had since collected to gawk in disbelief at their misfortune. He dropped the officer, who fell down to the canyon floor with a heavy thud. Several of the soldiers moved to retrieve him, but most of them merely scowled and made rude hand gestures up at Bumi.

"The nearest exit is about…" Bumi scratched his chin in mock deep thought, "forty miles that way. Have a pleasant journey!" Bumi saluted them derisively. The ire in the air was palpable, but they did not open fire. Many of the soldiers looked pleadingly to their remaining officer, begging with their eyes for a chance to roast the obnoxious earthbender. The officer, however, made no move except to remove his helmet and stare incredulously back up at Bumi.

Bumi's heart seemed to drop a foot or so. The long black hair, the golden eyes, the long, elegant, hairless face, all of it was horrifyingly familiar. Bumi and the officer stared into each other's faces, neither of them eloquent enough to lend their thoughts words.

"Kuzon?" Bumi finally said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Fire!"

A massive plume of flame erupted from the canyon floor.

--

A/N: Bum BUM Bummmmmmmm…

I declare the aforementioned transitionary period over! I'll give you three guesses as to how well Bumi takes this news!

Note: Heavily revised latter half of the chapter to make it seem less rushed and make it lead more believably into the next chapter. Also altered Water Tribe history to make it ambiguously old.

Next chapter: Bumi finds a new purpose in life


	14. XIII: Bumi the Soldier

**Episode XIII: Bumi the Soldier**

92 years ago (Bumi age 21), early fall.

--

Bumi awoke to a twinge of pain in his finger. Opening his eyes and slowly lifting his head from where it had been buried in his arms, he came face to face with a pair of bright eyes. In another situation it might have surprised him, but of late Bumi felt ready to believe anything.

The messenger, a modestly plumed lesser dragon macaw, cocked its avian head in apparent curiosity. Its unblinking yellow eyes bored into Bumi's own for several seconds. The bird waddled comically across the narrow stone banister upon which Bumi had been sleeping, a wrapped letter clearly affixed to its right leg. Still, Bumi made no move to receive the message nor even acknowledge the bird's presence. The bird was unmoved, and continued to bob its head, fluffing its dark green plumage and squeaking periodically. The little animal appeared inordinately proud of itself to have found Bumi way up on one of the deserted balconies reserved for guests of King Ouxi's rare royal feasts and in no mood to indulge Bumi's self pity. The bird proved itself only marginally more stubborn than Bumi, however, and eventually had to resort to biting Bumi's bandaged hand to illicit a response from the troubled man.

"Fine, give it to me," Bumi growled, sitting up shaking his hand ineffectually to dispel the pain. "Freakin' _pingnu_ bird".

"_Pingnu!_" the bird repeated joyously, turning around and spreading its wings to give Bumi access to the letter. Bumi gently untied the package and lifted it up to examine it in his undamaged hand. It was a tiny scroll, hardly six inches wide, and bundled in two thin pieces of red string. In nearly every way it was unremarkable, but the inked Fire Nation emblem that glared ominously from one side suggested otherwise.

The messenger macaw stared at Bumi and bobbed its head excitedly. Bumi looked grouchily down at it.

"I'm not going to read it with you sitting there," he informed the bird sarcastically, and gently pushed it off of the banister. The bird squawked its protests as it fell like a feathery comet for twenty feet or so before regaining its bearings and leveling out. Bumi watched it fly away in a broad spiral, still screaming with indignation.

The bird's angry ruckus had already died down and (had he taken the time to look) all Bumi could see of it was a tiny speck of color, fast retreating into the distance, but Bumi kept his eyes on the scroll. His head swam with thoughts. Should he open it? It was not difficult to guess from whom it came, considering how few people in the Fire Nation he knew. It was much harder, however, to decide whether he wanted to hear what said person had to say.

It was seventeen days already since Bumi had trapped the firebenders in Bent Woman Canyon. Seventeen days since he had seen his friend for the first time in years, then been set on fire for it. Sixteen days since he had limped through Omashu's front gates sporting a blistered left arm and a twisted knee.

His injuries had not been severe in a physical sense. The burn had been glancing and would, if the healers were to believed, leave only minimal scarring so long as Bumi took care of it. The knee he had injured as he hit the ground had long since healed itself, though it still felt a little stiff and sore. Far worse, of course, was the betrayal. Bumi was not particularly social and was remarkably clueless when it came to certain feelings. He was a talented manipulator and held a savagely pessimistic outlook on human nature, perfectly ready to assume they were all selfish, dishonest, backstabbers, and act accordingly. To have his own friend do such a thing, though, was entirely different. Only in the days he'd spent brooding since his return did Bumi realize how much he had trusted his friends, how much he had been willing to put them in a pile outside of humanity. He had believed that as long as he understood them, all the rest of mankind's collective duplicity could not phase him! Even career realists like Bumi secretly held certain shining ideals to be unshakeable, but were least capable of dealing with their destruction. How did the optimists do it?

Bumi had tried without success to answer this question for days. Kuzon had been his friend. He had always been part of the Fire Nation, but Bumi had always assumed his friend's loyalties would remain to the Trio of Valor, to the concepts they play-fought for as kids. Who was at fault? Kuzon, certainly, should not be a part of the Fire Armies, of this Bumi felt sure, but did not Bumi himself recently promise not to hate the Fire Nation for merely sporting a different culture from his own? Perhaps the blame should go instead to Bumi for being selfish and close minded enough to assume he understood his friend, for assuming his friend was not a flawed, selfish, dishonest human. Perhaps Kuzon's actions were only reasonable; perhaps he was deserving of forgiveness.

The one thing that needled at Bumi about that conclusion, though, was the difference between their positions. Bumi had refused to get involved in the war, even on the defending side. He had instead spent the past two years attempting to help Aang. Kuzon, on the other hand, had cast his lot in with Aang's potential murderers. That was an offence Bumi might never forgive.

Bumi looked again at the bound scroll, now resting on the banister. He was not surprised to see it, he realized. He could not claim to have been _expecting_ it, per se, but nonetheless he had spent the past seventeen days brooding in the most abandoned corners of Omashu he could find. He had not gone looking for Kuzon, nor for help dealing with what had happened (arrogant though he was, Bumi acknowledged that Shou would have wisdom to share if only he cared to ask for it). Had he been subconsciously waiting for just this sort of answer?

In the end, it was the bird that convinced Bumi. The macaw had clearly been of Earth Kingdom origin. No doubt it would have been difficult for a young Fire Nation officer to obtain its use. That alone spoke to a certain amount of effort on Kuzon's part. Bumi slowly grabbed the scroll and tore it open.

He read it. His brow furrowed to match his frown as his eyes swept across the lines of thin, elegant handwriting (he managed to push back memories of good-naturedly teasing Kuzon for writing with a 'girly' font). He reread it. He reread it again.

Minutes later, Bumi stared out at the expanse of Omashu as he crumpled the note in one hand.

--

The birds sang sweetly in the treetops of a secondary lychi forest. The breeze was pleasant and autumn at the equator was balmy and comfortable. Bumi did not notice as he reread the crumpled and recrumpled note in his hand for what must have been the hundredth time.

Bumi 

_Meet me on the outcroppings just north of Kwair in three days. I want to talk._

_--Kuzon_

Once again, the brevity and presumptiveness of it struck an odd nerve in Bumi, and he wadded up the letter in spite. Technically, he might have been thankful for being given the chance to talk to his friend at all; he could have spent the rest of his life without any sort of closure on the matter. Right now, however, he was not in the mood to be thankful for anything.

Despite his frustration and confusion over events, Bumi had wasted no time in heading for the proposed meeting spot. He had arrived more than a day ago and taken a seat on the very top of the tallest of three rocky hills a mile or so north of the small village. The view was expansive and, though sparse forest covered the land, Bumi thought it unlikely that anyone would sneak up on him without him knowing about it. Something in him doubted that Kuzon was attempting to trick him; he simply insisted on believing there was a better explanation, but it did not do to be unprepared.

Bumi had not eaten nor slept since his arrival. He spent the time he did not spend rereading the remnants of Kuzon's letter thinking furiously, walking himself through every possible scenario his mind could invent. Would Kuzon be apologetic? Defiant? Angry? In the past, he would have guessed Kuzon to react politely yet stubbornly. He would probably explain the misconception and apologize for his part in it, but no more. Still, Bumi was uncertain. Being nearly killed by one of your two best friends had a way of forcing one to reassess one's relationships. Furthermore, though, Bumi could not even guess how he would respond to any of Kuzon's many possible approaches. One second he felt an overwhelming feeling of relief and anticipation that he was about to see his friend again, was fully ready to forgive all offences; the next, ready to earthbend Kuzon into paste as soon as the traitorous bastard showed his face.

Bumi sighed loudly. He was back in his home, barefoot and wearing his trademark yellow vest instead of the past two years' boots and parka, and yet it was amazing how uncomfortable he felt.

A sound reached his ears. Someone was calling his name. Even from this distance, Bumi could recognize Kuzon's silken voice, though it had deepened (just as Bumi's had not) over the years. Bumi sat up straight on his boulder seat. His heart beat wildly and his mind even more so. It was time. He could feel footsteps approaching. In a last bout of coherent thought, Bumi stuffed the letter deep into his pocket and assumed what he hoped was a nonchalant pose just as Kuzon stepped into the clearing.

The bushes parted to reveal his friend, and only his friend. Bumi inserted a deliberate pause before lazily turning to meet Kuzon's gaze. They stood in silence, merely staring at one another in a silent battle. Neither smiled.

Kuzon sported the lighter type of Fire Nation armor usually reserved for firebenders. A heavily-woven maroon hauberk, thick leather boots and gloves, metal bracers and shin guards, and a pair of ornamental shoulderpads that, though rather more modestly than the blatantly overcompensatory spines that nonbending soldiers sported, nevertheless curled upwards in an intimidating fashion. Bumi had worked for Kihni long enough to recognize Kuzon's armor as of an uncommonly high quality, providing good protection and range of motion. He wore no helmet, and his long black hair and golden eyes starkly framed the paleness of his face. He stood with a practiced grace and posture that Bumi could not deny was commanding and impressive. It was clear that, with or without a helmet, Kuzon was the substantially better prepared for a fight. Still, he had come without any help that Bumi could detect, and furthermore had agreed to meet upon a great pile of readily tossable rocks.

"Well?" Bumi finally grunted. "Talk." Kuzon breathed a subtle sigh of relief, apparently having been convinced his armor might actually be necessary. Kuzon cleared the distance between them. He looked unsure of how to greet Bumi and seemed on the verge of extending a hand to shake, but wisely took the taller boy's crossed (and quite muscular, sans armor or not) arms as a sign and thought better of it. The firebender looked around cautiously for a moment.

"I am sorry Bumi. I didn't mean to hurt you, I… I panicked," he gushed suddenly, as inarticulate as Bumi had ever seen him. He looked honestly apologetic, and the look of confusion and worry on his face melted Bumi's resolve somewhat, but Bumi was not about to let him off _that_ easily. He raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't mean to hurt me by telling forty firebenders to attack me?" He gestured to the bandages around his left hand. Kuzon looked a little deflated, but pressed on.

"I saw you, I guess, but I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't want to think it was you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I would never attack you." Bumi did not relax his frown. It did not sound like a particularly persuasive reason to open fire to him. Recalling his own shock at seeing Kuzon, however, he admitted it held _some_ weight.

"Why did you come in armor, then?"

"I am not supposed to be here. I am a captain; I would be in a great deal of trouble if someone should catch me. I had to sneak away from my troops." He paused and grinned roguishly. "But of course, I _am_ a captain. By the time they finish the drills I gave them they will be too tired to even think." Bumi stared at his friend impassively for some seconds, but Kuzon did not flinch under his gaze. As Bumi had suspected, Kuzon would admit some error, but no more. He would not humble himself further. At length, Bumi uncrossed his arms and leaned his back against one of the boulders. Kuzon relaxed visibly.

"So… Captain, huh?" Bumi asked after a moment. "How many old friends do you have to betray to get that, just two?" He stared innocently at Kuzon, whose gaze darkened.

"I have betrayed no one. I apologized for what happened. It was a mistake, and I am sorry. Beyond that I have done nothing to you and certainly nothing to Aang." His voice had regained the severe aristocratic air it usually held. Bumi growled.

"You've done nothing to Aang? Mind explaining why his whole civilization is _dead_ then?" Kuzon looked sheepishly at his feet.

"You… you know I cannot condone what happened. I would never… I would never have…" he looked hopelessly to Bumi. "You must believe me, Bumi, I… I was not there." Bumi looked down at his friend, a snarl frozen on his lips.

"And yet you serve the master that ordered it. Aang is dead and you don't even have the courage to do anything about it." Bumi decided to hold back what he had learned at the air temple. Kuzon was clearly disturbed.

"Aang is… dead? You know this?"

"What did you think happened to him? They're all dead!" The firebender did not meet Bumi's eyes.

"They didn't tell us what happened. They just said they were defeated; General Bujing presented the King Monk's staff to the Fire Lord." Bumi snorted at the mention of the King Monk, and something in Kuzon's eye made him think the firebender recognized the lie as well. "They don't talk about it much," Kuzon admitted.

"Not surprising," Bumi grunted, burying the small amount of pity he felt for Kuzon under the mountains of justified anger. The two of them stood in silence, each remembering Aang and the Trio of Valor.

"All this time," Bumi admitted, growing tired of the silence, "I assumed I'd only lost one friend, when it turned out the other was as good as dead."

"Shut up, Bumi."

"_You_ shut up. Did everything the three of us shared mean nothing? Did it mean so little that you would run off and join Aang's murderers?" Bumi's voice got louder and louder.

"I am Fire Nation, Bumi. My loyalties are to the Fire Lord. Anything less and I am a traitor."

"You _are_ a traitor!"

"For serving my nation, for helping to bring about a new Age of Enlightenment?" Bumi was surprised.

"Age of En-" he started before Kuzon interrupted him.

"Did your beloved king tell you we just wanted to see you dead? That we were just inhuman killing machines that stood for the opposite of everything you do?" Bumi made no comment, mostly because Kuzon was right. The Fire Nation's motives were not generally explored in very much depth by the peoples they were displacing. "We have passed beyond the other nations," Kuzon continued, his gestures radiating pride. "We have discovered a new way to live, where man is not subject to the spirits, but where the spirits are subject to man! The physical world continues to toil under notions of subjugation to the Spirit World, but what is the Avatar against the power of industry? The spirits have spent far too long holding our world in limbo. It is time for thought and knowledge to take us to the next step! The Fire Nation discovered this many years ago. It is our duty not to let the world slow our progress." Bumi was, admittedly, rather caught off guard. It was a side of the Fire Nation story he'd never before heard.

"You would war against the benders?" he asked. Kuzon frowned at him and extended a hand. With an almost imperceptible twitch, he called a small flame to his palm. It flickered cheerlessly in his grip before leaping to his fingertip. Kuzon maintained perfect control and concentration over the tiny flame as he forced it to hop from finger to finger like an excited insect.

"Of course not," Kuzon said, staring intently at the great power he held in his hand. "I would war to bring a new peace and order to the world." They both watched the flame dance for a few more seconds before Kuzon clenched his fist, extinguishing it. "It will be a better life, Bumi," he concluded, peering hopefully at his friend.

"For some, maybe," Bumi admitted sourly, "for those willing to betray what they once believed in." Kuzon cursed aloud. He was not sure whether he was more angered with Kuzon, for justifying his betrayal thusly, or himself, for secretly understanding.

"Damnit, Bumi. Don't be a fool!"

"Mad genius!" Bumi growled, pointing to his head.

"Then why don't you understand?" Kuzon roared back. "Since when have you cared about anybody but yourself? Have _you_ been true to your beliefs?"

"I haven't burned any villages recently, that's for sure!"

"You haven't done anything! You're just a coward, content to sit back and be smarter than everybody. You're afraid of the world changing!" Bumi swung a fist at Kuzon, which was easily dodged. "You call me a traitor, but you don't even _have_ a side, so how would you know?" Kuzon taunted, wheeling away from another of Bumi's attempted attacks. The firebender did not call upon his element, which enraged Bumi even more. He dug his hands into the rocky ground and lifted a meter wide slab of stone.

"I know attacking your friend's home and killing his countrymen isn't exactly a bonding experience!" he shouted, pitching the rock at Kuzon, who narrowly avoided it as it shot by. A great burst of fire erupted in front of Bumi's feet as he bent for more ammunition. Bumi fell backwards in surprise.

"Enough, Bumi," Kuzon said calmly over the sound of crackling flame. Bumi looked resentfully up at his once-friend, whose face was calm and dour. "You told me once that the war would be nothing. Well you were wrong. It is something, and you need to accept that. You disgust me," Kuzon continued, brushing the gravel out of his hair. The two bored into each other with hateful gazes.

"I like the shirt," Kuzon mentioned as he turned around and walked away. "Yellow matches your personality." With a casual flick of his fingers, the flames around Bumi were instantly extinguished. The sound of Kuzon's retreating footsteps filled their wake, and Bumi was alone.

--

There were different ways to be angry. One option, probably the most noble among them, was to simply avoid it. Of course, it was unreasonable to expect any man, even the most even-tempered of air monks, to live a life completely separated from his anger, but many of the world's most perceptive people (the aforementioned monks once chief among them) had long realized that anger almost always stemmed from confusion and prejudice. With a careful, measured look at the circumstances that made him angry, one could often find understanding and with it, peace. It was a talent that few ever really mastered, and perhaps the airbenders' most potent ability.

The vast majority of the world's people acted rather more in line with the second option. Anger could be bandied about, worn on one's shoulder until it disappeared of its own accord. Any anger kept in the forefront of a man's mind would take hold there until he had raged about long enough or instead gone back to the first anger option. It was true, anger treated in this way could force a man to do awful things; to betray friends or harm innocents, but on the whole it rarely caused more damage than a drunken fistfight or two, and then it was gone.

The third and worst response was reserved for a certain type of mind. Where loud anger could force a man to act viciously without thought, quiet anger could help a man act with measured, premeditated viciousness, which could be far more dangerous. To let the rage stew silently without lending it release did more than affect a man's behavior; it affected the man himself. To those who thought too much and loved too little was given this type of anger. To those who knew him, it went without saying that Bumi fit this description all too well.

To those who did not, seeing Bumi stroll into Omashu's training base and join the Earth Army, outwardly unaffected by the argument with his ex-friend, ought have made it clear enough.

--

Had Bumi been asked before joining them what the Earth Army's occupation most entailed, he would have confidently guessed 'fighting', and he would have meant the traditional striking enemies with rocks and/or metal implements until they perished from blood loss or trauma kind of fighting. Looking back on his first few weeks of boot camp, however, it was clear they were no less skilled at psychological weaponry. It was amazing how, under the right circumstances, a shout of "at ease!" could seem like the most generous gift one human could ever grant another.

At least this was how Bumi's mind observed it as the entire bulk of the eleventh platoon of the Southern Division of the Earth Army collapsed, collectively, into the dirt in a rather liberal interpretation of "at ease". The one hundred or so men that grunted feebly on the ground were dressed only in light cotton pants (and a yellow vest, in Bumi's case), but the clothing felt, to each of them, like a suit of the heaviest armor. Master Gar's earthbenders caught their breath in the center while the regular soldiers did so spread out up against the walls of the training field.

Bumi was no doubt one of the most athletic men in the regiment, yet even he paled in comparison to the drill sergeants' apparent standards. Thirty seconds or so of panting proved sufficient rest for Bumi to pry his no longer bandaged (and barely scarred, as promised) fingers from the handle of the shield he'd been holding for the past few hours. His knuckles creaked audibly and felt quite ready to snap off, should they be prodded with any modest force. He managed to pull one of his legs mostly out of the ground in which it had been trapped, but he proved too tired to remove the other and so he leaned down on the ground and panted.

They had spent the whole morning performing the non-earthbenders' least favorite drill. Those not lucky enough to wield their culture's geological might had to stand, almost shoulder to shoulder and holding heavy shields and swords, and keep themselves from becoming trapped in the great pits of quicksand the earthbenders had to maintain beneath their feet. For the soldiers unfortunate enough to be holding the shields, it was strength and endurance training, forcing them to drag their weapon-laden limbs through the thick sand for hour after hour, straining their entire bodies to the absolute limits of their endurance. Though to all appearances less physically strenuous to the earthbenders, maintaining the concentration necessary to keep solid rock pulverized enough to engulf a man was enormously taxing of both mind and body. It also helped emphasize their ability to deal with foes at short range; a task at which the notoriously artillery-minded earthbenders consistently fared poorly. It was a phenomenally hard exercise for both parties, and every man in the platoon dreaded it.

Nearly as bad, however, in Bumi's mind, was that the exercise widened the already-wide rift between the earthbenders and the rest of the army. To Bumi's understanding, this tension had existed as long as the Earth Army had. The regular infantry had always resented the preferential treatment given the benders, which were proportionately fewer in the Earth Kingdom than in any of the other nations. Encouraging the earthbenders to subdue their supposedly less talented companions did little to dispel the general belief that the non-benders were merely fodder, only useful to soak up attrition.

To be fair, though, the rivalry in this particular regiment was of particular magnitude, due in no small part to Bumi. Even now, Bumi did not understand entirely why he had opted to join the regular infantry instead of the earthbenders. Though he was sufficiently talented to equal the other earthbenders in most of their drills, he was nonetheless enormously conscious of his continuing inability to match them when it came to good old-fashioned rock throwing. It was more comforting to also entertain, however, the idea that something Kuzon had said played at least a great a part in his decision. Kuzon had outright admitted he had nothing against benders. Was that why Bumi suddenly did? He had never felt jealous of other earthbenders before (no doubt because they were always so clearly beneath him intellectually, whatever their bending talents); but Kuzon's obvious progress in firebending struck him rather harder.

Regardless of why, Bumi's placement threw gas on the proverbial fire. He was almost universally hated among the earthbenders (it did not help that they were being principally trained by Master Gar, who unfortunately had quite the memory for embarrassing anecdotes from their shared past). Early on, the earthbenders had missed few opportunities to point out his lack of talent, nor to guffaw at his every misfortune during training. Luckily, among the non-benders he was held in a much more pleasant light, and they were quick to come to his defense. Whether to view Bumi as a failure and a traitor or a revolutionary was a deeply polarizing issue among the men and the cause of more than a few fistfights.

Bumi had taken to the games with fervor not unlike that of his childhood, and had tortured the earthbenders mercilessly. He had framed dozens of them for crimes they did not commit and yet to which they found themselves inexplicably tied (a happy result of Bumi's self-schooled talents at earthbending with unparalleled subtlety of movement) and, after also blackening the eye of their unofficial thug of a leader, Givin, had managed to convince the earthbenders that he was better ridiculed quietly and from afar. He had not stopped the rivalry; he'd only changed the rules.

Everyone was too tired to be worrying about petty rivalries at the moment, however. One by one, the soldiers pulled themselves up out of the ground and limped towards the enormous white tent the regiment used as a mess hall. Every square inch of his body was sore, but Bumi knew there would be hell to pay if he proved anything less than exemplary, so he bit the proverbial bullet and pulled himself to his feet. The Earth Kingdom's men were not, as a rule, unfit. Though it was probably fair to say that they sported the greatest proportion of sedentary merchants and other such physically weak individuals, they nonetheless were by far the most athletic among the four nations. Not only were a majority of them farmers and laborers, but as a culture, they revered and encouraged fortitude. What use was stubbornness if one did not have the strength to back it up? Bumi understood the mentality and indeed applied it to himself. He did not, however, think that strength could prevail over intelligence, and could not help feeling the Earth Army's apparent love of 'endure-back-breaking-torture-until-you-can-endure-no-more-and-then-keep-going' training philosophies was something of a disservice to the soldiers. Better they should learn to behave tactically, to respond to situations, he thought, than become durable but inflexible units incapable of keeping up with the far more adaptable Fire Nation. Too much strength training made idiots of them all.

_Case in point_, Bumi thought with a dismissive eye roll as he spied Givin and his cronies approaching him from behind. He feigned obliviousness to their presence and made his way slowly towards the long food line.

"Hey Stoneless, that was some sad stuff out there," Givin grunted. His posse chuckled stupidly. Bumi waved a dismissive hand behind his back.

"Couldn't agree more, slack-jawed ingrate! Not sure what Master Gar has been teaching you, but it clearly isn't working." There was a several second pause. Bumi kept walking

"I meant _you_, Stoneless." He tossed a small rock into Bumi's shoulder to catch his attention. Bumi turned to face the gang.

"I knew what you meant, oh transparently-simple oaf. I was being ironic," he said, performing a sarcastic bow. There was another long delay as Givin fought to understand Bumi's words. Bumi could almost see the two mismatched gears that Givin called a brain turning ponderously. Eventually the gears met their sudden conclusion. Givin growled and grabbed Bumi by the collar, yanking him forwards to meet his face. Bumi considered the merits of headbutting the earthbender and giving him another black eye, but decided against it when he spied Master Gar watching them from a few paces away. His old earthbending master never hesitated to get Bumi into trouble, and though Bumi was typically wily enough to avoid even that, it _had_ happened before, and he had no intention of cleaning the training camp's latrines again. As it was, he would have to solve this without violence.

"You talk a lot," Givin grunted. Bumi calmly grabbed Givin's hand and pried it from his collar.

"I'm sorry. I suppose some of that was a bit polysyllabic for you. I'll try to slow it down in the future," he responded, coolly brushing the dirty handprint from his yellow vest. Givin looked quite ready to lash out, but at that moment, Master Gar lumbered by, peering disapprovingly at the two of them.

"Don't waste your energy fighting the regulars, Givin," he commanded quietly.

"Yes sir," Givin said enthusiastically, bowing shortly before his master. Gar nodded, his gaze lingering on Bumi for a moment before he turned. Givin and his gang fell into the food line behind their master, leaving Bumi free to make a few rude hand gestures at their backs. A few seconds of this proved sufficient closure in the matter, and he finished brushing himself off and stepped into line himself.

He grabbed his rations (a wooden bowl of some sort of long-lasting gruel, water, and a hunk of bread), doing his best to suppress the elaborate expressions of disgust that had gotten him rebuked a few times already. In truth, their training camp was only a few miles from Omashu. If he had felt so inclined, he could probably sneak out of camp, enjoy a far superior meal at Shou's house, and be back without being missed too terribly, but he didn't think it was worth it. Shou had been insufferable since Bumi told him he had joined the Earth Army, and while he secretly appreciated the support, the constant congratulations and advice and attention Shou had heaped on him at every opportunity since felt undeserved and decidedly uncomfortable to Bumi.

"Mad Genius!" he heard someone shout as he looked for a place to sit. (He had nearly punched the first man who started calling him 'Rocky', insisting on a more creative nickname. 'Bouldermined' he had liked better, what with its combination of rock imagery and 'Bolder Mind', but in the end decided his usual nickname still fit him best.) He caught sight of a waving hand. It was Cahim, seated at one end of one of the long stone tables with several other non-benders from Bumi's unit. The boy, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old, had proven Bumi's biggest fan ever since Bumi's first fight with Givin, and looked on him with something akin to hero worship (Bumi tried to discourage this, but Cahim was unrelenting.) Bumi sighed and took a seat to the boy's right. He stared at his food with distaste.

"Take heart, Bumi," one of the identical twin brothers (Alam or Shufu, he didn't know which) told him cheerfully after a few seconds. "It gets better as it ages." Bumi lifted a spoonful of the gruel and let it drip slowly back into the bowl.

"This stuff should be pretty damn delicious by now, then." The men shared in a laugh and dug into their meals. Bumi ate slowly, each bite feeling more like an obligation than actual food.

"I think we're going to be moving out soon," Cahim observed after a few minutes.

"What makes you think that?" Xeu, a somewhat panicky, anti-social man in his late twenties asked quietly. Bumi raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He had heard nothing to suggest their training would soon come to an end.

"Well," Cahim paused dramatically, clearly proud of himself, "I was refilling my canteen the other night when I overheard Commander Shal and Master Gar talking to someone, arguing about whether we were ready. I didn't recognize the man, but I think he must have been a general or something, requesting more troops." Bumi rolled his eyes slightly and continued eating.

"Well I don't care what any of them say," Cahim continued, "_I'm_ ready to fight some firebenders. Those bastards aren't going to burn _my_ village, not if I have anything to say about it." His voice rang with youthful enthusiasm. Bumi felt very much like an old man when he was around Cahim. In truth, he was only a few years older, and yet was worlds more pessimistic and grouchy. The only explanation that Bumi could come up with was that he had mostly rushed through the childhood phase of optimism and graduated right away to the smarter frame of mind. Pessimism was definitely the way to go. After all, if you predicted a negative outcome, you were either right or pleasantly surprised, right?

"They already got mine," Xeu admitted in little more than a whisper.

"Oh yeah? Where you from?" one of the twins asked.

"In the Vaichen." Several among the group winced. The Vaichen Valley, a deep, forested region to the northeast, had been devastated early in the war, and was quite firmly in Fire Nation hands.

"Sorry," the other twin said truthfully. "We're from just north of the Si Wong. Almost got put in the Ba Sing Se division but my father didn't trust the Earth King, so we moved out here."

"Smart move. Ba Sing Se's had its head up its ass the whole time. Too worried about themselves to spare much for the rest of us. Like they'll ever topple the walls," another man snorted derisively. It was true, the Earth Kingdom's military efforts had largely divided between Omashu and Ba Sing Se, and also true that Omashu was forced to cover a much larger area with a smaller force. Still, honor guards from the capitol had made enormous efforts to defend key supply lines throughout the kingdom, which was far more important than maintaining the safety of the many scattered villages, whether the villagers wanted to admit it or not.

"Bumi?" Cahim prompted. Bumi finally lifted his gaze from his meager meal.

"'Mashu" he grunted through a mouthful of bread. He felt a hand strike him bracingly on the back in a brutal gesture of male affection.

"Safer than all of us, I guess," one of the twins said. Bumi shrugged, brushing the crumbs from his scraggly whiskered chin.

--

Cahim, as it turned out, had been wrong (or at least Commander Shal and Master Gar had convinced the general that Bumi's platoon was still unready for combat), and so the eleventh platoon continued its furious work. They trained for weeks, sometimes with (or against, rather) the earthbenders but usually apart. It was exhaustive work.

They would wake up early, far earlier than any of them but the former farmhands might normally care to, and run. They would run the several miles from the sea of tents that was their training camp to the edge of Omashu's chasm and back, through rocky foothills and dense desert vegetation the whole way. They'd spend the remaining morning hours on one of the lighter drills, like archery or sword practice. Immediately after lunch, during the peak of daytime temperature, they would move on to more difficult work; sometimes the quicksand drills, sometimes practicing formations, other times merely lugging rocks around on a several-mile course through the foothills (this one was Bumi's favorite by far, though the sergeants usually gave him enough extra weight to offset his earthbending advantage). They'd do this with little break for several hours, taxing themselves to the extreme. After dinner they'd do more weapon exercises, finally stopping when it became too dark to continue safely. At this point, most of the soldiers would retreat to their tents to sleep, though some passed the time by sitting around the camp's bonfires and socializing (still others would head to Omashu for the night, but few were willing to stomach the walk after so much work). The beds were stiff, the food was poor, and the punishment for any deviance was harsh. To Bumi, it was testament to the dire straits in which some men found themselves that they were willing to put up with it at all. (The Earth Kingdom had not yet had need to initiate a draft; mostly, in Bumi's mind, because the peasants that inhabited the hundreds of defenseless villages scattered throughout the continent mistakenly believed joining the war effort was the best way to save their homes).

The only saving grace amongst so much effort was that progress was noticeable. What was once a disorganized rabble of boisterous young men steadily came to resemble instead a well-oiled fighting machine. Skinny farm boys who'd never held a sword in their lives moved and fought with furious strength. Their training included the gamut of time-tested (but limited, in Bumi's opinion) Earth Kingdom strategy, passed down from conflicts thousands of years old. They knew their formations, knew how to entrench themselves, how to construct defenses, how to form shield walls, how to present themselves as nigh-untouchable walls of strength. It was not only the earthbenders that bore deep similarities with the staunchly indestructible element that gave their kingdom its name, and Bumi saw fully normal men shrug off blows that would shatter firebender limbs like toothpicks.

Whatever he would say about the strength of the Earth Army's troops, though, Bumi could never shake his disappointment in the commanders and tacticians that made the decisions. He made a name for himself by frequently challenging the thinking behind every drill and lesson, loudly insisting on a more adaptive and intelligent focus. Every time he was offered the same non-argument that the Earth Kingdom's ways were ancient and unmoving and sentenced to some backbreaking manual labor to, or so Commander Shal put it, 'help him grasp the Earth Kingdom way'. He would bear the labor in his usual aggressively proud fashion and challenge the next day's lesson with no less venom. It became something of a ritual and as the weeks went on it seemed the officers were running out of backbreaking chores faster than Bumi was running out of new ideas.

Still, Bumi took to the training with gusto. He had long known about the spectacular feeling of power that came with knowing more than those around you, and that trend held even truer when it came to matters of battle. There was a nigh unparalleled allure held in cleaving through an opposing torso (even one made of straw) and an even greater one of knowing thirty ways to do it. Despite a certain latent urge to get to actual combat, Bumi found the days and days of self-improvement immensely fulfilling.

Eventually, however, the time to fight did come.

--

The world was a big place. Bumi had recognized this before, of course, but the point was entirely more persuasive when one had to traverse it on foot and fully bedecked in armor. Even now that the eleventh platoon could walk on grass instead of only on scalding rock, the soldiers expressed their monumental soreness with a chorus of subdued grunts (which were Earth Kingdom for 'I am in enough pain that I wish to mention it, but not enough that any of _you_ better mention it'). All around him, the sound of bare and shod feet alike plodding along was deafening. They spoke very little as they traveled, focusing their lungs instead on the tight breath control that was paramount for long journeys without rest. The pungent musk of ostrich-horse and hundreds of sweating men filled their already dust-filled nostrils.

The call to battle had finally come almost a month previous. They had come back from their daily run to Omashu and had obediently prepared themselves for polearm training with Sergeant Hugao, but had been instead met by Omashu's premier military officer, General Munsu. The great general and his troops had just returned from a campaign in the north and were recuperating within the stronghold city's mighty walls. Munsu had peered haughtily at the eleventh division, inspecting them as one might inspect livestock. He had run them through trial after trial (though surprisingly, he turned out to be not nearly so harsh as the sergeants) but, aside from a few trivial qualms Bumi suspected he invented to keep up appearances, had not found in them any great faults.

He had followed this act with a lengthy speech that was no doubt supposed to be inspiring. It had begun with the usual buzzwords about 'honor', 'duty', and 'way of life'. Bumi had snorted with quiet contempt throughout the sermon, anticipating the general's next words. Nonetheless, the general had been quite the motivational speaker and most of the regiment had swelled with pride, so much so that there was very little batting of eyes when the General had told them they would be dispatched not to the desperate villages to the south and east, but instead to the north. It was paramount, the General had claimed, that the twin lakes and the land between the Earth Kingdom's strongholds remain clear, for only then could they maintain the resources to liberate the conquered villages. Truthfully, Bumi was entirely ready to abandon the people to defend the greater whole of the kingdom. Unlike his idealistic platoon-mates, however, Bumi doubted there was strong intent or purpose to coming back to the villages at all. Nearly half of the Earth Kingdom's people lived in Omashu or Ba Sing Se. Providing those two cities could remain undefeated (and they could, judging by the Fire Nations thoroughly unsuccessful attempts so far) and their resources kept intact, the Earth Kingdom could never be truly conquered. It could merely outwait the Fire Nation and repopulate the world once the opportune moment came.

Of course, the Fire Nation had different plans, and had been encroaching on the strongholds' supply lines with increasing aggressiveness since their legendary failed sieges. So, inspired or merely rational, the eleventh division, some fifty earthbenders, two hundred soldiers, and thirty men astride ostrich-horses, had set out under Commander Shal on the first day of spring.

Their journey started well enough. Morale was high, and after months of training the soldiers were more than ready to put themselves to the test. Soon, however, the novelty wore off and the realization that they were weeks away from any fighting set in, and the men plodded onward without any of the jubilation that had marked the first days. They traveled in a long arc, cutting across the jagged mountain ranges that sheltered Omashu's northern side. The weather became more and more pleasant, and some respite from the exhaustion was provided as grass and leaf litter replaced the hot desert soils they were used to. Once they were suitably past the mountains, the terrain quickly changed into an endless temperate forest, green and pink with spring's new growth. They passed the road that ran from the western stronghold through the Serpent's Pass (now even less a palatable route since the Earth King had ordered it broken) to the capital and steadily made their way to the northeast.

The vast forests that filled the northwestern Earth Kingdom sheltered the Fire Nation's greatest progress in invading the continent. Dozens of villages had been subdued, coal mines had been captured, and bases were being hastily constructed to secure their hold on the region. One base in particular, too far behind enemy lines to be touched, served as a staging grounds for the Fire Nation's slow spread south and eastward. The western and eastern lakes that flanked the Serpent's Pass held vital shipping lines and ferries. Thusfar the careful placement of platoons and military bases from Ba Sing Se had kept the Fire Nation from establishing a naval or coastal presence from which they could disrupt the shipping, but the fighting on this front intensified every day.

The eleventh platoon was to destroy a new Fire Nation outpost that was threatening the safety of one of the honor guard's forward bases.

--

It was early morning when the wisps of smoke from Fire Nation campfires were first seen. The scout had practically fallen out of the tree in surprise after having scaled so many without seeing a thing. A ripple of excitement and worry coursed through the camp as the news spread, and the already rapid morning ritual suddenly felt rather more hectic. Some of the more curious men, Bumi included, quickly packed their tents and scaled the tree to get a look for themselves. The forest was extremely dense and made it hard to see anything with assurance but indeed, perched as he was on a tree limb some sixty feet from the ground, Bumi could see the tell-tale column of gray smoke peeking above the canopy, little over a mile away. He frowned and watched it curl ominously until the order to move out was given.

The platoon moved quietly. They had been told that the outpost was relatively small, that they safely outnumbered their enemy, and that the Fire Nation believed the outpost was entirely hidden, but there was no sense in abandoning caution. The Fire Nation sported far better scouts than the Earth Kingdom, and in the dense forest it was difficult to get anyone close enough to note the defenses without getting captured and imprisoned, so it was anyone's guess how the outpost might have changed since the last time it was seen. The soldiers crept worriedly along, weaving through the trees with stealth and caution more akin to crafty water tribesman than to fearless Earth Kingdom brutes. One poor Fire Nation soldier, out for a morning patrol, was unfortunate enough to find himself immediately surrounded by foes and was summarily dispatched before he had time to call out. An imperial hawk, too, was killed with a well-placed arrow from Cahim for looking too much like a Fire Nation messenger.

They were already close enough to smell the Fire Nation's breakfast when the silence was shattered by a shout. They had been sighted. There was a brief moment wherein the entire group tensed; choking on the breaths they hadn't realized they had been holding. The sound of a plume of fire erupting from somewhere up ahead brought them out of it, and with a chorus of battle cries, they charged.

Bumi rushed along with the non-benders, brandishing a short iron sword in his right hand. They were flanked on either side by the armored ostrich-horses and from behind by the earth benders, who sent a hail of upended forest bedrock hurtling through the sky. They cleared the last few hundred yards quickly and met their foes, weapons swinging wildly. The outpost, a trio of tall wooden towers guarding a small clearing full of tents and squat buildings, rose to the occasion. Firebenders and soldiers streamed to the conflict, quickly assembling into loose formations. Even as Bumi knocked the blade of his sword into a Fire Nation soldier's iron helmet, he had to admire their flexibility and intelligence. They spread out, forcing the Earth Army to break its formation to engage them and preventing the ostrich-horse mounted soldiers from trampling them en masse beneath the bulk of their animals. Arrows rained down from the towers. The forest was alive with the sounds of battle.

Jets of fire roared into the ranks, igniting soldiers and sending the formation into disarray. The Earth Army fought on bravely, however, charging into the firebenders with as much force as they could muster. They swarmed towards one of the towers, which continued to slaughter with impunity. The firebenders flocked to its defense but were quickly outnumbered and could do nothing as the earthbenders tore the tower's foundations out from under it. Bumi had to leap to the side as it thundered to the ground in a symphony of splintering timbers and collapsing tents.

Ignoring the various pains lancing through his body, Bumi rose headed for the next tower with little pause. However stubbornly ignorant of the dangers of battle he was, however, he did skid to a stop as the ground in front of him exploded, sending burning leaf matter in all directions. It was only out of sheer luck that he did not stumble forwards into the blaze but rather backwards, onto his backside. He had a split second to roll out of the way before another plume of fire shot towards him, setting the dry underbrush aflame. Bumi's eyes quickly found the firebender responsible and he rushed towards the smaller man. He could not help but mentally superimpose Kuzon's face on his target as he swung his sword at the firebender's torso, expecting to feel the gruesome resistance that meant he had connected. The firebender sidestepped the swipe, which cut harmlessly through the air. Bumi managed to duck beneath the fiery counterattack and swung again, again meeting nothing but emptiness. His third swipe caught a fireball in midair and Bumi felt the sword blasted out of his hand in a rush of searing air. It clattered to the base of a tree, bloody dampness boiling off of its surface.

Knowing he could not reach his weapon without being barbecued, Bumi did not hesitate to grab the firebender's extended wrist, ignoring the painful heat of the man's skin. The move seemed to surprise the firebender enough that he barely struggled as he found himself yanked bodily over Bumi's shoulders and swung headfirst into the ground. Bumi quickly gained the upper hand, and though the firebender tried in vain to aim a fire blast up at the earthbender, he could do little but roast the surroundings at oblique angles. A swift kick to the back of his head was enough to knock him unconscious.

Panting and soot-covered, Bumi gingerly touched a blister on his arm where a piece of burning debris had landed on him and craned his neck to look at the battle. Another resounding boom heralded the demise of the last of the towers, and Bumi could see the few remaining Fire Nation troops being overwhelmed or turning tail and retreating into the forest. The battlefield was engulfed in fire from errant firebending attacks, but even the crackling of ancient trees burning to the ground was not loud enough to block out the cheers as the last of the enemy was dispatched. With a heaving sigh, Bumi retrieved his still-hot-to-the-touch weapon and trudged to rejoin the platoon.

--

Fully aware of the Fire Nation's capacity for fast, organized counterattacks, the Earth Army wasted no time in departing. Without the time for the proper rituals (however simple they happened to be in the relatively pragmatic Earth Kingdom), the slain were saluted and hastily buried where they fell. Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom dead shared a final resting place as enormous tracts of the battlefield were lifted and inverted by teams of earthbenders, hiding the battle and its effect for all eternity. By the time the Earth Army began its hurried march to the east, all that remained of the battlefield was a great plot of what looked to be freshly plowed farmland, dotted with the charred remains of uprooted trees.

The platoon made good time. From a logistical standpoint, they had lost very few of their number. To comrades who had lived and worked together for months, however, any loss was too great, and only Bumi could take much solace in the logistics. They marched in a narrow formation, the injured upon the backs of the ostrich-horses or leaned upon the shoulders of the healthier soldiers. The men were surly, wrapped up in their melancholy thoughts of home, family, or death, and none were greatly surprised when a cool rain began to fall in an apparent effort to match their moods.

They marched almost ten miles before stopping in the densest part of the forest they could find, where they spent a miserably cold, damp night, too wary to create campfires so close to Fire Nation territory. They rose early and continued their march, again proceeding most of the day without rest. They camped that night at a small forward guard post, concealed within a grove of lychi trees on an appreciably drier plateau. The two guards were friendly, having spent so long in the forest cut off from all other people, and the groups traded information. The next morning, messenger birds were dispatched. Those too injured to keep fighting were left at the guard post to await pickup while the rest of the platoon continued its journey.

Their destination was a small Earth Kingdom base a mile or so from the coast of the Western Lake from which the Earth Army protected the shipping docks and the trade roads that ringed the lake's perimeter. The base itself had been surprisingly successful thusfar, but the territories all around it swarmed with small Fire Nation forces, which fought the Earth Army at every turn. The soil became rockier and the forest less dense as the days passed, and the call of traveling seabirds became a welcome morning sound, but the men remained grim. The platoon zig-zagged from outpost to outpost, extinguishing Fire Nation occupation forces as they went. Casualties were few but steady, and every day the platoon felt smaller and smaller. They were down to only one hundred thirty men, just shy of two thirds of their starting number, when they finally limped through the gates of the Kan-Xi base.

--

Bumi could smell the ocean strongly, even if, from where he sat upon the thick stone walls of the base's northeastern side, he could only see a sliver of shimmering silver in its place. It was late at night, and though the inky black silhouettes of the rocky hills and trees that helped conceal the base almost completely blocked his view of the ocean, it was an undeniably beautiful sight. Bumi found himself missing the simpler life he'd lived as an adopted water tribesman. He could recall, long ago, dropping his scribe duties in search of a simpler life, but could not now recall life in Omashu as being even remotely simple. No, it seemed it was impossible to live in the Earth Kingdom and also be free of the influence of money and politics. It was an unfortunate fact, but so was the fact that the Fire Nation saw fit to take the continent by force, so Bumi supposed society served its purposes. Besides, he was not unfamiliar with the allure that money held.

"Mad Genius!" someone called from behind him. Bumi ignored the voice. "Bumi!" He turned and immediately regretted it. It was Cahim, calling from where he sat eating salted meat with a dozen or so other soldiers around a roaring bonfire. "Laor hasn't heard the story about how you stole your pet from the military base!" Bumi rolled his eyes, confident that in the dark the derisive gesture wouldn't be seen. He had been forced into telling and retelling that story ever since he had made the mistake of mentioning Mipsie. To keep it interesting, he exaggerated it a bit further with every rendition to see how long it would take someone to challenge it. So far, no one had. Next time, he planned on saving Mipsie from the infamously powerful Dai Li, and after that perhaps the Fire Lord himself.

"You've heard it enough times. Why don't you tell him?" Bumi shouted back.

"But I can't do the voice of the evil general like you can!"

"He'll just have to use his imagination then," Bumi said with finality. Cahim seemed to deflate a little, but he did not protest further. Bumi returned to gazing out at the darkness.

They'd been there for three days; mostly sleeping off the enormous rest deficit they had accrued throughout their campaign. With the exception of very occasional guard duty, they had done nothing remotely martial since they had arrived. The Fire Nation had not been seen in the area for over a week and morale was high. At night many of the soldiers would gather around the campfire and talk. Bumi submitted the occasional story (he had a rather more vivid life story to refer to than the other soldiers, especially after he had embellished the memories a bit), but when the conversation turned, as it was wont to do, to fond reminiscing of home and family, Bumi felt strangely intrusive and quickly excused himself. Bumi loved his home as much as the next man, but it was a primarily practical love, more about fondness for his accustomed life than any real patriotism. He considered telling them about the Imaux tribe, but rejected the thought for being dishonest. So instead of joining the others, Bumi would often sit atop the walls as he did now, exercising his keen ears and considerable eavesdropping experience.

At present, the men were taking turns quietly describing the first time they had ever killed. Each man spoke his tale with great drama and sullenness, clearly giving it a place of importance in his memory. A soldier's first kill was a defining moment for his outlook on life, and each story described the poignant thoughts that went through their minds as they watched their enemy, a feeling person with a family and children, die by their hand. Bumi snorted at the needless melodrama of it all. Obviously no one thought of their foes as feeling people with families and children while they were fighting; all of that had to be added later. The fact of the matter was, in war, a soldier's first kill was traditionally followed immediately after by his second and third kills and so on or, alternately, his death. It was only later, when no longer in danger, that he considered the scope of his actions. Bumi did not enjoy killing and was not immune to the thoughts the men had described, but he did not see the point in vilifying himself. Every man he'd ever killed (eleven or twelve, by his count, depending on whether the firebender he'd concussed in that first battle had avoided being burned alive by the forest fire or buried amongst the fallen), he'd killed for a reason. The reasons were justification enough at the time and therefore to claim that morality had had anything to do with it was phenomenally self-delusional. Bumi was sure that, approached with the same situations, he would kill them all again.

Bumi yawned magnificently and decided he'd spent enough time staring into the abyss. He clambered down the wall and headed for the vast array of white tents crowded into the base's walls, nestled among which was his own. He found it easily enough (recognizing his sword stabbed into the ground at its entrance). It was not a large tent and Bumi had to stoop over considerably to enter, so it was a simple matter to flop down on the simple cot that struggled to share the tent with Bumi's armor.

Resting his head against his crossed arms, Bumi ignored the feeling of one of the cot's wooden spokes digging into his ribs (he wasn't entirely sold on the idea that it was a significant improvement over sleeping on the ground, but the change was refreshing nonetheless) and peered absently through the canvas walls, listening to them flap gently in the breeze. It was only by random chance (or luck, if Bumi had believed in luck) that as his gaze lighted on the heap of shed armor he noticed the scrap of paper protruding from beneath the lip of his thick leather shoulder jerkin. He reached out and plucked it from the ground.

It was smudged with dirt, but even in the dim light Bumi could read the orderly print.

_"Wei-Ei Base is overrun. Watch your eastern flank."_ Bumi frowned at the jagged scrap, as if it would surrender its secrets to him out of fear. The handwriting was strangely familiar, as if Bumi had seen it before, but Bumi could not for the life of him attribute it to a particular person. The paper on which it was written was clearly torn out of some sort of official document, but other than that nothing about the note itself gave a clue as to its sender, nor as to when in the three days Bumi had spent in Kan-Xi base it had been delivered.

Still frowning, Bumi rose to his feet again and left the tent. He doubted that Wei-Ei, another Earth Kingdom base a few tens of miles southeast of Kan-Xi and serving a similar purpose, but for the region surrounding the Eastern Lake, had truly been overrun. While smaller, Wei-Ei was considerably farther from the Fire Nation front lines, and thus presumably a less attractive target. Still, it _was_ possible and either way, Bumi would be remiss not to report it to Commander Shal.

He did not lift his eyes from the paper as his feet carried him by rote to the command tent. The only distraction sufficient to draw his attention was a great roar, as if the air was being torn in half, and a sudden bright light. Bumi craned his head skywards just in time to watch a gigantic burning projectile fall out of the eastern sky and land quite forcibly on a stand of tents, reducing them to burning canvas and tinder. The camp was suddenly abuzz with shouts of fear and surprise as, in the distance, dozens more of the projectiles traced magnificent trails of light through the sky. They were under attack. Bumi glared accusingly at the slip of paper. The second volley hit home, knocking holes through the base's walls, and growling, Bumi wadded the note into a ball and thrust it into his pocket.

The base was in utter chaos as Bumi sprinted back to his tent. Fire rained down from above, sending the Earth Army scattering, each one rushing to reclaim his weapons. Bumi had to leap over a wide strip of burning tents to reach his own, collapsed but luckily unharmed. He hastily threw on his shoulder jerkin and boots. Even as his hand settled into the familiar grip of his sword, Bumi picked Commander Shal's voice out of the tumult.

"Entrench! Entrench!" the commander was shouting as he dodged falling projectiles in a mad dash towards the conflict. Opting to abandon the rest of his armor, Bumi did the same, hurtling over debris and the bodies of those unfortunate enough to have been sleeping in their tents. The base's entire eastern wall was already rubble, and firebenders were marching in, baking the bedraggled Earth Army with sweeping streams of flame. Bumi ducked under a fire blast, rolled across the ground, and dropped painfully into the trench the earthbenders were hurriedly excavating just behind where the wall once stood, overlooking the steep hillside. His hands found their way to a small boulder, which Bumi wasted no time in hefting into the nearest firebender's shins. The man screamed in pain and dropped into the trench, where he was quickly finished with a vicious sword strike.

The trenches proved an excellent immediate defense, as they protected the Earth Army soldiers from the fire of all but the most foolishly brave firebenders, who were themselves easily dispatched with well loosed stones or arrows. Bumi stood shoulder to shoulder with the other defenders, peering over the edge of the trench just long enough to see the troops that were slowly ascending the rocky hillside (and hopefully just short enough to avoid the jets of flame said troops sent up at them). The earthbenders kicked mercilessly at the sides of the trench, shaking the whole hill and sending landslides of shifting rock down upon their foes. The Fire Army could not close the distance without taking enormous casualties.

Unfortunately, they did not have to close the distance. Their catapult-borne fireballs continued to thunder down on the Earth Army's defenses, forcing the soldiers to scramble away or be slain. They would return as fast as they could and repair the collapsed trench with a few hasty earthbending moves, but the Fire Nation troops gained more ground with every such distraction.

"Damnit! How did they get catapults in range without us knowing?" a soldier to Bumi's right complained as yet another flaming boulder pounded some of their defenses into dust. It was a good question. Catapults typically took time to construct; it was hard to imagine they could prepare them before they were discovered. There was no time to think about it now, however, as another fireball was heading straight for them. They rushed down the trench and were thrown bodily into the floor as the projectile impacted behind them. A bolt of pain lanced up Bumi's leg; his ankle had landed at an unfortunate angle and had been wrenched painfully to the side by his fall. He felt a hand wrap under his armpit and haul him to his feet. It was Cahim.

"Thanks," Bumi growled through gritted teeth.

"No problem." They heard the pounding of many footsteps, and the horned head of a Fire Army soldier appeared over the edge. The soldier stabbed his spear viciously down at them. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Bumi grabbed the spear shaft with both hands and yanked the soldier downwards, where he met a gruesome end on the tip of his own weapon. Throwing the bloody spear down in contempt, Bumi limped to the front of the trench and risked another peek. Bumi felt Cahim's arrows whistle over his head and an enemy soldier, barely three feet in front of him, toppled and rolled down the hillside.

The Earth Army was not doing well. The firebenders had made considerable progress up the hill, and were beginning to leap down into the trench throughout its length. The defending soldiers were in disarray, too distracted to deal with both the encroaching infantry and the fire that continued to drop from the sky. They would not last long at this rate. Bumi stared into the darkness of the forest from which the catapults were firing, and had a sudden epiphany. He ducked back into the trench and sat down to think. Cahim eyed him strangely, but said nothing.

After a moment, Bumi rose to his feet and tossed himself over the back edge of the trench, back towards the burning base.

"Come on," he ordered. Cahim and the twins, who were huddled nearby, exchanged curious looks then, after a moment's hesitation, clambered after Bumi. The four of them rushed through the conflagration and through a gaping hole in the back of the base, ignoring the fact that they looked very much like cowardly deserters.

"What are we doing?" Cahim asked, panting, as Bumi led them down the opposite side of the hill.

"Winning," Bumi retorted, but declined to explain further. Despite his twisted ankle, he managed to lead them to the foot of the hill and into the protection of the forest in little time. Once they were safely concealed amongst the dense tree cover, they doubled back, heading in a wide arc to flank the Fire Nation forces. They moved quietly (pointlessly so, as the nearby battle was deafening) as they slowly crept towards their foes. When they began to see the light from the burning catapult ammo flickering through the trees, they dropped to their stomachs and crawled the rest of the way, finally stopping under the cover of some low shrubs.

"I still don't get-" Cahim started before Bumi interrupted him with a palm to the face. Bumi held a finger up to his lips and parted the bushes.

Before them, as Bumi had suspected, were not the Fire Nation's traditional catapults but instead what were apparently a smaller versions mounted on the backs of a small herd of war rhinos. The Earth Army soldiers' eyes widened; they had never seen this before. It thoroughly explained how the catapults could have been quietly moved into range, however. Rhinos could move rather quieter than could large wheeled structures, and were better able to navigate difficult terrain like forests.

At present, each of the three rhinos tucked into the forest clearing was being manned by a two person team, which loaded heavy rocks covered in oily canvas, lit them with a bit of quick firebending, and sent them hurtling towards the Earth Kingdom base. The rhinos bore it all in good humor, apparently unaffected by the fury of the battle going on in front of them and wholly focused on the bales of hay they had been given to eat.

The four soldiers looked at each other and nodded. It was clear what they had to do. Cahim notched an arrow in his bow while Bumi and the twins crept onwards towards the second rhino. The three of them took refuge in a dense stand of bushes. As one of the first rhino's crew lifted another stone to throw, a _twang_ pierced the air and he fell, the stone dropping heavily on his chest. His partner, busy firebending the current salvo, had barely enough time to look confused before another such arrow lodged itself in his sternum. The other rhino handlers gave a shout of surprise and rushed to the fallen soldiers' aid, only to have Bumi and the twins leap out and engage them. All four of them fell in short order, the last's neck cloven by a blow from one of the twin's swords.

The conflict seemed to rouse the rhinos very little, and only one of them, the largest of the three, turned its massive head to stare at the Earth Kingdom soldiers. It regarded them coldly, its feet pawing gently at the ground. Rather than give it a chance to attack them, Bumi went straight to his plan. He grabbed one of the fallen soldier's weapons and jabbed it into the burning boulder waiting on the first rhino's back. The blade was soon red-hot, and Bumi returned to the bull rhino, smiled wanly at the great beast before stabbing the heated blade into its rear. The blade did not pierce its thick skin, nor did the heat illicit more of a response than an irritated twitch. The rhino let out a growl and wheeled towards Bumi. It lumbered after him slowly, but its size made it undeniably imposing. The catapults on its back shifted from side to side as it plodded.

Looking nervously from side to side, Bumi poked the still hot spear into the beast's shoulder, with no greater response than before. Cahim and the twins looked on helplessly, shouting ineffectually to distract the animal. Backing up, Bumi tripped over a root and nearly landed on another burning boulder resting in the dirt. He had a sudden burst of inspiration, and even as the rhino bore down on him, grabbed a handful of scalding ash and pitched it into the monster's eyes.

This time, the great creature let out a roar of fury and pain. Its long tail flailed about madly, tearing a nearby tree from the ground, roots and all. Cahim and the twins dove for cover to avoid being smashed. The rhino's swept its great head furiously from side to side, tearing deep swathes in the earth with its horn and stomping viciously with its heavy front legs. Bumi jumped to its right shoulder, reached up, and grabbed hold of its reigns. His weight on the right side of the rhino's head steered the enraged animal in a wide circle. As soon as the rhino was facing the Fire Nation ranks, Bumi let go and rolled to safety. The rhino bellowed and stampeded forward. There was a great outcry as it thundered into the Fire Nation ranks, smashing armored soldiers to a fine paste beneath its bulk. Bumi, Cahim, and the twins laughed heartily as the firebenders tried to turn their fire upon their own animal, only to further enrage it.

Bumi leaned on the impassive face of one of the other two rhinos, which continued eating, oblivious, and watched the show. The rampaging rhino proved a considerable distraction, and the Earth Army soldiers poured over the edge of their defensive trench, sliding down the hillside and crashing into the disoriented firebenders. It was a resounding come from behind victory, and it took only minutes to kill, capture, or rout the remaining firebenders. The furious rhino was trapped between two great shelves of rock, and the Earth Army looked on in barely-restrained curiosity as four of their own emerged from the decimated Fire Nation ranks and thanked the beast for its contribution.

--

A/N: And there we have it! Another chapter, in belated celebration of the belated return of Avatar. This chapter was a major pain to write, mostly because it contained so many transitions, so I apologize if any of it seemed choppy. I see, now, that the average chapter length for this story has practically doubled since I started it. Is this a problem? Would people prefer more, shorter chapters? Tell me what you think!

Note: Revised the latter half of the previous chapter to make it better fit with this one. Only minor alterations, really. Also, renamed one soldier.

Next chapter: Bumi thinks up yet another use for large, herbivorous quadrupeds!


	15. XIV: Bumi the Captain

**Episode XIV: Bumi the Captain**

90 years ago (Bumi age 23), early summer.

--

_"In the matter of categorizing the flow of energy in battle, one cannot hope to do better than the eighty-five jings, as interpreted by the late Avatar Ao, or, as some have come to call him now that he is safely some thousands of years dead, 'The Warbender'. Whatever one may say of how he used them, few would deny the potency of Avatar Ao's battle strategies, and so it is his account of the jings that has persisted."_

_"Out of his eighty-five ways to direct one's energies in battle, Ao honored five, appropriately the first five, as the central jings. They are, in order, to attack, to retreat, to await, to turn one's enemy, and to turn one's self. Sadly, only the former two of the central jings are widely recognized. No doubt that any man interested in battle strategies has already discounted the latter two, and inaction as action appeals to only a very few. The first and second jings, long since popularized as the 'positive' and 'negative', cannot alone represent the depth of Ao's historic eighty-five, however, which Ao intended to be viewed as part of a greater whole."_

_"Almost as if to lend credence to this idea is that Ao sorted the remaining eighty jings into subsets of the central five. Though the precise categories are long-debated, roughly, jings six through twenty-six correspond to the first central jing, twenty-seven through forty-four to the second, forty-five to sixty-nine to the third, seventy to eighty to the fourth, and eighty-one to eighty-five to the fifth. Ao warns against becoming too dependent on any one of these groups, and advocates a battle plan and indeed a lifestyle that incorporates all five in equilibrium. An appendix Ao wrote for Hual-Shin's third book of essays elaborates further on this matter."_

A poorly restrained guffaw echoed from across the cavernous room. Bumi looked up from the ancient, yellowed pages of Omad the Historian's Tome of War. He pivoted around on the polished wooden bench to glare disapprovingly at Cahim, Alam, and Shufu two tables down, who guiltily stifled their snickering and leaned in conspiratorially. His eyes still locked on the three troublemakers, Bumi raised a hand. One of the librarians materialized by his side. Her hawkish face was drawn up in worry and her eyes flicked to watch the brutish soldiers Bumi had so callously brought into her usually quiet domain. Bumi considered trying to reassure her that his men would not damage anything, but he was not entirely certain he could do so honestly.

"Do you have Hual-Shin's works?"

"Yes," the woman breathed, staring through the corner of her eye at one particular soldier fondling the gold-inlaid spine of a truly ancient manuscript.

"Bring them to me." This roused the lady's attention enough that she actually looked Bumi in the eye for a moment.

"The… Hual-Shin's writings are very old. We are…" she stammered, trying to come up with a convincing excuse. Bumi rolled his eyes.

"Just his third book of essays, then." She nodded, visibly relieved, and bent to remove the stack of books that Bumi already had piled next to him. Bumi put a firm hand on the stack to hold it in place.

"Leave 'em." Affronted, the woman marched off in a huff, and Bumi made as if to return to his reading. As soon as she disappeared amongst the labyrinthine halls of books in Omashu's royal library, however, he stood and strode over to Cahim and the twins. They were still bent over their books and so did not notice his presence until he loudly slammed both of his hands down on the table, shocking the wits out of all three.

"Enjoying the literature, are we boys?" he asked in a patronizing tone. Before they could respond, Bumi grabbed an unopened book at Shufu's elbow.

"_Bending and War; Doctrines of the Ancient World," _he read from the title, "is a fascinating bit of writing. Despite the fact that it is nearly as old as Omashu itself, it is intelligently written and full of useful knowledge gleaned from all four nations, and yet it apparently failed to keep your attention. Not enough pictures, I guess?" He peered significantly down to the book of portraits of ancient avatars, which the trio had apparently been using as a means to rate the attractiveness of the females among Aang's many past lives. (In another situation, Bumi probably would have laughed at the irreverence). Cahim found his voice first.

"Come on, Bumi! You've had us here for like a week!" he protested while one of the twins hastily closed the book (but kept his thumb marking a particular page). "Today's our last day in Omashu and we're stuck in here _reading_ when we should be enjoying the comforts." The soldiers at the nearby tables fell still, clearly glad someone had finally voice what they had all been thinking. Bumi narrowed his eyes dangerously. A few seconds of utter silence passed; they had all fought and lived alongside Bumi before and his penchant for elaborate retaliation at any perceived slight to his pride was well known.

"That's _Captain_ Bumi," he growled, "and as _captain_ I can choose to augment my unit's training in any way I see fit. You are decent fighters but you are all morons. I don't need morons in my unit." The soldiers, which had indeed been in the library since early this morning, slumped down in defeat. Bumi let his statement ferment for a moment in the quiet.

"Get out of here. I'll meet you at the gates at sunrise." The tension shattered, the room brightened, and a chorus of cheers broke out. Several of the men clapped Bumi approvingly on the back as they quickly pushed their way out of the room, leaving the library's books scattered across all the tables instead of back on the shelves where they belonged. The soldiers' loud talking and singing as they departed for their last night of merriment echoed boldly through the halls, but soon enough all was silent again, leaving the vulture-like librarians to scowl disapprovingly at Bumi. He shrugged and returned to his own seat. As he had requested, Hual-Shin's third book of essays, a dog-eared, yellowed book struggling to hold itself together, had been placed atop his already tall stack of reading. He sighed to no one in particular and opened the first page.

Bumi was extremely well read for a man of his age and station. Education had never been of particular necessity in the Earth Kingdom, where the vast majority of the population lived and worked on farms with no time for schooling. Children born to rich families or sent off to waste their lives as scribes often received a decent education, but otherwise the Earth Kingdom was a largely illiterate nation. Few though they were, however, there were always wise old thinkers generous enough to record their knowledge for those that wished it and this small trickle of new literature had filled Omashu's great library over the millennia. Bumi had been exposed during his studies at the high-class academy in the upper levels of Omashu to all of the history and math and economics befitting a young noble, and had succeeded at this basic level with very little effort. When he read a thrilling account of the great battles of famous generals from the past, however, Bumi saw much more than merely a fact to parrot at parties to prove he respected his ancestors. He saw the power. History repeated itself. The rift between benders and non-benders was vast and important, but the rift between the smart and the dumb was by far greater. What bender, he had often asked himself after memorizing a particularly thrilling scroll of military history, could possibly compete with a flexible enough mind? Possibilities, consequences, patterns, deceptions; these elements eclipsed earth, water, air, and fire any day.

The similarity of this position to how Kuzon had justified the Fire Nation's warring was not lost on Bumi. His once-friend had been right in a way, had offered an opinion Bumi had long held. The idea, though, that one could bring the world into a peaceful, technological age of enlightenment through gratuitous use of blades and firebending, however, boiled at Bumi's blood. His teeth gritted at the very thought. It was hypocrisy, it was demeaning, it was a complete betrayal of the intellect it espoused. Fueled by the angry memory of his friend's last words to him, Bumi's fists clenched his book so hard he nearly tore it in half. He forced himself to focus on the words, on the deadly strategies and poignant thoughts of Avatar Ao. Kuzon's mistakes were _his_ mistakes; Bumi was doing things right, was leading as the great generals past would have.

To be fair, Bumi's recent promotion hardly put him at the helm of Ao's legendary armies. Indeed, it was perhaps as meager and insulting a promotion as one could receive besides receiving none at all. He had traveled with the eleventh division for nearly two years. Rarely a battle had gone by in which his ingenuity did not save his life, and often the lives of others, but his continued criticism of the army's decisions had not endeared him to his superiors. He had watched less talented men get promoted before him (an observation he was not bashful about sharing with anyone who would listen). In the end, it was only after a particularly gruesome battle wherein Commander Shal and roughly half of their number had lost their lives that the eleventh division was disbanded and repurposed into many smaller units. Bumi had been given command of eight men, all non benders, and orders to take them scouting along the southern edge of the Si Wong desert, a region that had largely been left for the Fire Nation invaders (for whenever they cared to invade it), to find out how many of the handful of large villages in the area remained intact. Of course, it was more about evaluating possible safety risks to Omashu and Ba Sing Se's southern flanks, but considering how many of Omashu's troops came from the Southern Earth Kingdom, nobody made a particular mention of that.

Despite the dullness of the assignment, Bumi had been thrilled and had spared little time in herding his soldiers into the library. They had been demoted to mere scouts, it was true, but nonetheless Bumi had been given a great opportunity. It was finally time, he thought, to prove himself. What kind of damage could even a small unit of adaptable thinkers and fighters, led by his own commendable genius, inflict on the Fire Nation? Bumi's mind conjured a plethora of immensely pleasing possibilities, painting his hypothetical team as everything from spies to elite supercommandoes. In all honestly, the men had taken to his lessons with only mild success, but it was a step in the right direction. Just how far he could carry them remained to be seen.

Of course, Bumi would never force his men to read if he did not earnestly believe in its value, and so even long after his unit had left the library, Bumi was still in his seat, pouring through page after page of handwritten insight. He read Ao's appendix in the back of Hual-Shin's book, then started from the beginning and read the whole thing through. He was halfway through Omad's lengthy essay on the jings when one of the librarians replaced his candle for the second time. It was mere hours until he was scheduled to leave and yet he could not bring himself to stop. It was well past midnight when one of the librarians gently but firmly tossed him out, insisting in no uncertain terms that he could not take the books with him. He stumbled through Omashu's darkened streets with an exhausted drunkenness.

Tired as he was, though, his mind continued to buzz with activity. He had long known the poor sense in thinking hard right before bed, but had ultimately accepted the consequential insomnia rather than learn to manage his habits more carefully. Tonight was no different and, feeling it was far too late for his habitual pre-sleep meditative stroll, Bumi proceeded directly into his tiny, earthen room in the barracks and flopped down onto his cot. Except for the snores of the soldiers in the next room, it was quiet and comfortable, but Bumi had to struggle in vain to calm himself. Thoughts and scenarios paraded mercilessly through his brain.

After an hour or two of tossing and turning produced no results, Bumi surrendered with a groan and sat up, resting his feet on the dirt floor. He felt wearied. He felt his control over his life slipping through his fingers. He cradled his shaggy head in his hands, kneading the tension out of his scalp and bemoaning the world's injustices for several minutes before realizing what he was doing and, with a start, adopting a more self-assured posture. The small rooms given to the officers offered some privacy and Bumi was quite safe from observation, but he still grimaced with disgust at his weakness. He was a soldier, a good one at that, and moreover he was Bumi. Such mental failure was beneath him. As if to reinforce the point visually, he reached for his yellow vest draped over the heap of armor in the corner and pulled it over his head.

Even in the darkness, he worked quietly and swiftly, fitting each armor piece perfectly to his body. The simple task took the edge off of his fatigue and brought clarity to his thoughts. A heavy leather jerkin went on atop his vest, itself then covered by his thick shoulder pads and breastplate. Their weight felt comforting and purposeful. Just as he constructed his warrior garb, piece by piece, so to did he feel as if he was constructing himself. He clamped the stone-studded bracers he had invented a few months back tightly on his wrists. Similar bracers for his feet and a matching belt (let none say Bumi lacked fashion sense) were next, followed by his short sword, which he buried in a dirty old scabbard hung on his left hip. Last of all was a gorgeous dadao, a gift from Shou to celebrate Bumi's promotion. He lifted the great sword, all of a meter of magnificently polished steel atop a masterfully crafted pommel, and stared at his warped reflection. Darkened bags under his eyes betrayed his lack of sleep, but as he adjusted his headband in the dadao's malicious glint, he looked every bit the warrior, confident and purposeful within his suit of armor. Kuzon had accused him of being too cowardly to fight at the same plane in which he rationalized. Bumi prayed his friend would get a chance to learn just how wrong he was.

--

No matter how one looked at it, Omashu was a big city, bustling with activity. War on or not, there were things to do, lives to be lived. Maintaining the security of the foothills immediately surrounding the fortress city as well as the northward road that eventually wound its way to Ba Sing Se was of paramount importance, and Omashu's armies toiled constantly to repel the Fire Nation's advances. To their credit, they had kept the region safe enough that there was a dense traffic in and out of the city. Massive caravans of merchants and soldiers kept together on the long, long journey to the kingdom's capital, while legions of braver individuals dispatched on foot or astride ostrich-horses, bound for the desperate villages throughout the entirety of the Earth Kingdom.

Thus, it was not surprising that the exodus of a mere nine men on a scouting mission was overlooked (expecting as much, Bumi had been composing glorious horn fanfares to mentally superimpose upon their departure all week). The sun barely peeked over the foothills to the east, but at least three bigger and more important platoons had already departed when Bumi, having slept the last few hours sitting up and fully armored, arrived at Omashu's colossal gates. Dozens of men, soldier and civilian alike, milled about in the shallow plaza just inside the city. Bumi quickly located those among his group that had beaten him there (and made a note not to let _that_ happen again).

About half of the men had already convened and were bidding loved ones goodbye or staring listlessly up at the city. Bumi was feeling just ornery enough to berate them for some minor offense, and was striding purposefully towards them with just that in mind, when he caught sight of Shou, calmly propped up against a nearby stone railing. This surprised Bumi enough that he completely forgot about torturing his men and instead opted to trip over his feet and faceplant on the ground in a quite undignified manner. He shot Shou an angry glare as he picked himself up from the dirt, which the older man returned only with an innocent grin. Bumi sighed in resignation and approached him.

"How did you find out?" he asked immediately. He had quite intentionally kept hidden his departure time to avoid precisely this situation. Shou had a smug look on his face.

"I've got more friends in the army than you do, Bumi." They shared a meaningful smirk. "Well… I _have_ friends in the army, Bumi," he corrected. "I'd use them to threaten you into better behavior if I thought it would work."

"I guess they've told you it won't then, huh? I'm not exactly the model soldier." It was a flippant remark on Bumi's part and thus he found it particularly surprising when Shou rose to his foot and wrapped him in a tight hug. Shou's eyes were wet when he held Bumi at arm's length.

"You're a wonderful soldier. I'm so proud of you." Bumi arched a questioning eyebrow. "Make sure you make yourself proud, too." At this, Bumi grinned roguishly and patted his surrogate father on the shoulder in a comradely fashion.

"I'll make myself_right_." They gripped each other's shoulders for a moment, saying their silent goodbyes. After a moment, Bumi turned and headed for his unit.

He made no attempt to look back to see if Shou stayed to watch while he organized his men, nor even to wave one last goodbye as the great stone gates parted to grant them egress, but his sensitive feet could feel Shou's comforting presence the whole time, watching over him from his seat against the railing. He would never have admitted it aloud, but he was glad Shou had come.

--

They were barely an hour out of Omashu when the whining began. All nine of them were hardened soldiers, well used to long marches, but hardly a minute passed without the sun being declared too hot, the journey too long, the canteens too small, and so on. Back when they had been part of the eleventh division, none of them would have dared uttered a peep even after days of nonstop travel. In the company of hundreds of men marching to battle while the critically injured moaned their dying breaths from the backs of ostrich-drawn carts, it felt far too disrespectful to voice petty discomforts. Among friends, however, none of whom were in any imminent danger of dying, coming up with the most pitifully foolish complaints quickly became something of a game.

Walking at the head of the procession, Bumi largely ignored the comments, which only seemed to further encourage them.

"Well I'm so hot, I could fry a turken egg on my armor," one boasted.

"Well _I'm_ so hot I could fry a whole _turken._"

"Well _I'm _so unappreciated I'm being sent on a six month scouting mission as reward for three years of dedicated service. Some reward."

"No fieries though. Should be an easy six months."

"Wonderful. Bring on the fieries. No glory in babysitting a bunch of villages."

It went on and on. It was all in good fun, however, and the group remained in high spirits. They wove their way southeast through the rugged plateaus and valleys that graded into the dunes of the Si Wong. They would travel at a decent pace for most of the day, set up camp and spar or tell stories to pass the evening, then retire to sleep beneath the stars. It was indeed not a region where they expected to meet much Fire Nation resistance (aside from the coastal towns like Ojirun they needed to maintain their domination of the oceans, so far the Fire Nation had made only minimal effort in subduing the Southern Earth Kingdom), so they camped out in the open on high, dry hilltops, building hearty campfires with little regard to who might spot their brightness. As always happened on such journeys, however, the days began to drag on and, in the unchanging rocky landscape, devoid of firebenders (or people at all, for that manner) they began to crave a relief to their boredom.

They reached the first village they were to scout on the eighteenth day since their departure. As guilty as it might have made them feel, they were secretly disappointed to discover the village alive and well. Cradled as it was in a deep valley, and cushioned from attack by its lack of resources, it had remained untroubled for years. It had suffered due to the war, of course; the flow of goods to the area had significantly waned since the Fire Nation's first advances, but few of the villagers had ever even _seen_ a firebender, let alone fought them. Worse yet, far from the hero's welcome the soldiers had expected, they were treated as a minor inconvenience at best. They spent only a single night there, bunked amongst the hay in an old barn, before moving on.

The journey to the second village was punctuated with considerably more argument as the unit's frustration started to take its toll. Some of the men were genuinely thankful not to be risking their lives, but most felt insulted that they had been sent on such a thankless, boring, purposeless task. Bumi tended to agree with the latter camp. His mind's image of turning the Earth Army on its head with his flawless and unorthodox leadership of a handful of seemingly ordinary men was crumbling before his eyes. Scouting parties very rarely went down in history, especially when they went the whole way without_seeing_ their foes.

There was a ripple of excitement, then, when Cahim, out searching for water one morning, stumbled upon a pair of charred red horns protruding from the ground. A quick bit of earthbending from Bumi unearthed a small pile of severely burned firebender armor, all that remained of a Fire Nation casualty after their traditional cremation, and a hasty burial after the soldier's soul had been freed to rejoin the Great Agni in the sky. The mountains and great breadth of the Si Wong Desert to the north were generally considered enough to dissuade the invaders from any significant effort in the region (indeed, the defense of the entire southern third of the continent was left almost entirely to various disgruntled vigilante groups of freedom fighters). Evidence of recent fighting in the area was immensely exciting, if a bit foreboding.

From that discovery on, the group moved quickly and quietly, their senses alert for any danger. Their growing excitement grappled with their growing fear when they followed a great, diffuse column of smoke to the torched shell of a now-abandoned farm. The ground was still warm. They pressed onward with impressive drive and two mornings later found them prone on a hillside by the road, just close enough to make out the smattering of red and black troops that occupied the village.

--

Domination of the spyglass, Bumi decided, was one of the better executive perks of being a captain. Even though it belonged to Xeu, and even though Xeu had been _ahem_ing quietly by his side for the past hour in a thinly veiled demand for a turn with his own possessions, Bumi had no obligation nor intent to hand it over. It was not a spectacular glass, but it let Bumi stare down the center street of the conquered village with at least some clarity. He could just make out individual soldiers guarding the city's perimeter, loading supplies onto carts, and other such soldierly tasks.

They had sent Cahim, the stealthiest among them, to scout ahead for a better look and were silently awaiting his return. The soldiers' eyes were fixed intently on their captain, while his were intently fixed on their foes. Bumi was impatient for Cahim's report; he'd finished all the observing he could from this distance long ago. Bumi heard the scrape of shoe against sand.

"Four guards on the western flank, all firebenders," he listed, expecting to hear Cahim confirm his count. He trained the spyglass on each of them in turn, then continued. "Two catapults on supply carts, two on the roadside, two rhinos, at least thirty men."

"Bumi," someone said.

"Shut up," he retorted instantly, still squinting through the glass. "Can't see many villagers. Looks like they've got a few helping them load the supplies, maybe."

"Yeah… I guess that's what all those little green dots are," replied an unfamiliar voice, too close to Bumi's left ear for comfort. Bumi put down the glass to stare at the colorful man now lying next to him, staring out at the village through what looked to be a flute. He looked tentatively back at his men, who themselves were regarding the stranger with confused faces.

"See that big house there, man?" the stranger continued, "that's a big house there." Bumi grabbed him forcefully by the shoulder and turned him around.

"Who the hell are you?" The man stared at Bumi through his flute for a moment before lowering it, hopping to his feet, and delivering an elaborate bow.

"Tiu, sir, glad to meet you!" He beamed stupidly. He was narrow and uncommonly tall, several inches taller even than Bumi, and bedecked from head to foot in a mismatched assortment of blue and purple clothing. Curtains of hair draped down to his elbows, while a necklace containing no fewer than thirty flutes bounced loosely on his narrow chest. His face was boyish, his eyes distant and cheerful, and he stank a sickly-sweet odor. Bumi frowned at the man's general creepiness.

"Get out of here."

"Oh, most certainly!" Tiu chimed brightly. "I wonder, though, if you could point me towards the nearest village." Bumi wore a look of blank incredulity for a few seconds before pointing out to the village at which they had both been staring not minutes before.

"There. Guess you'll have to settle for the second nea-" he started before Tiu cut him off. The bizarre harlequin of a man turned to look down the road away from the village.

"OVER HERE!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, waving his flag-like arms wildly. It was not two seconds later that one of the twins had tackled him to the ground, pressing the breath from his body, but the damage was done. Bumi had the spyglass trained back on the village in a flash, searching for a response. It was too far to tell if the guards had heard them.

"Go," he growled. He and his men quickly grabbed their gear (and Tiu) and bid a hasty retreat, heading for a sheer hill a half mile or so from the road. Tiu did not seem to notice being dragged along by a man who outweighed him two times over, nor the hand clamped over his mouth, and continued to gesticulate. They had hardly made it fifty feet when they saw why and stopped in their tracks.

A great procession of man and beast was lumbering their way. Six great mandrillephants, the smallest eleven feet at the shoulder, plodded along, each one laden with many hundreds of pounds of goods. Two dozen or so people, all bearing colors at least as bright as Tiu's, mingled about at the monsters' heavy feet. As the caravan approached, Tiu snaked out of his captor's grip and rushed forth to meet a similarly slender woman in red. They embraced briefly. Tiu swept a willowy arm towards Bumi.

"This fellow found the village for us!" Bumi drew his sword with a growl to dissuade the several individuals already approaching him with flowers of gratitude.

"What are you people doing here?" he demanded angrily, aligning the tip of his sword with Tiu's forehead. Again, the man appeared oblivious.

"Why, being nomadic of course! We are nomads after all, forever wandering the globe to share our wisdom and our crafts." Tiu gestured magnificently at the sky as the other nomads heartily agreed. Even the mandrillephants lowed contentedly. Bumi kneaded the bridge of his nose with two fingers, already feeling the headache approaching (though how much it came from the newcomers and how much it came from the nauseating smell they carried was hard to say).

"Just get behind the hill."

--

The nomads found no fault with this order and ten minutes later all of them were safely hidden from view behind the cliff side. Luckily, they seemed to grasp the concept of not being seen, and, after a few smashed sitars, eventually managed the concept of not being heard as well.

Bumi and his men sat in a circle by the edge of the cliff where they could keep an eye out for incoming threats, trying to decide what to do. Several among the nomads joined them, offering nonsensical platitudes from time to time, but they were largely ignored.

"We can't face them alone. That's a whole regiment at least," one man was saying. "Our orders were to assess the area and report back home. It isn't our job to clean this up."

"There are people there who need us. We can't call ourselves soldiers and do nothing," another contended.

"Dead people can't call themselves soldiers either. We need to escort the nomads to safety and get out of here."

The group argued amongst themselves as a formality while Bumi sat pensively and thought. They all knew it was his call, and furthermore that he had likely already made it. Indeed, Bumi's mind swam not with the moralities his men were trading but instead with possible plans of attack. This was a golden opportunity, his chance to prove what he had long claimed. He would attack the village alone if he had to, so long as he had thought up a decent plan. Guard was tight, though, and they were vastly outnumbered. If they should attack and fail, that would be the end of his dreams, whether he survived or not. Bumi was not so foolish to believe his powers without limit.

It was at that moment that Cahim returned, huffing and puffing with exhaustion. He stumbled a little in surprise when he caught sight of the nomads, but quickly regained his bearings. He quickly took a seat in the circle and was handed a canteen. The entire group looked at him in anticipation as he drank greedily.

"Four… Four guards on either end of the city," he finally started, still panting. "Forty or fifty firebenders, some siege equipment, a couple rhinos," he listed, largely confirming Bumi's earlier counts.

"What are they doing?" Bumi asked.

"Looks like they might be headed for Ba Sing Se or Omashu. They're stockpiling explosives. Blasting jelly; fifty barrels, at least. Hard to imagine it's for the village." Bumi's eyes lit up as he factored this into his battle plans, but Cahm stared gravely at him. "They're not fooling around here," he warned, "These are not your average troops."

"You don't think we can take them?" Cahim shook his head, clearly disappointed in himself.

"I… I don't know, Bumi." Bumi nodded. Cahim was as brave as anyone. If he didn't think an attack was worthwhile, it had to be hopeless indeed. He strained his mind one last time, seeking some overlooked factor that could rescue the situation, but could find nothing. He sighed aloud, disappointed.

"Alright. We move on." The soldiers nodded solemnly. "And _you_ guys," he started, turning to Tiu, who immediately cut him off.

"Wait, _you're_ Bumi? _You're_ the tall kid with the yellow shirt?" They all stared at him. "Huh," Tiu said, looking genuinely gobsmacked, as if he had expected someone far more impressive. All the same, he pulled a scroll out of his robes. "An old man back a ways told me to give this to you." He handed the paper to Bumi, who quickly unrolled it, his curiosity overwhelming his pressing desire to strike Tiu in the face.

_"Do not enter the village" _was all it read. It was, of course, the same handwriting as the note that two years ago had attempted to warn him of the impending attack on Kan-Xi base. Everyone stared at Bumi as he growled and tore the paper to pieces in a rage.

"You," he barked, jabbing a finger into Tiu's chest. "Who gave you this?"

"An old man back a ways," he admitted truthfully.

"He didn't say who he was?"

"Just said to give it to a tall kid with a yellow shirt named Bumi."

"How far back a ways?" Bumi hissed, his anger rising dangerously. Tiu shrugged, unconcerned.

"Two days?" Bumi growled again and stared down the road from which the nomads had come. Two days was too much; whoever had sent the note could be anywhere by now.

"We can't go hunting for this guy, Bumi. We have to go," Cahim insisted gently from behind his right shoulder.

"Like hell. We're not going anywhere."

--

Were they not otherwise occupied trying to decide whether he was being serious or not, Bumi was certain his men would have to agree on the brilliance of his plan. A week of intensive library research or not, however, all of the soldiers were staunchly Earth Kingdom in their mannerisms, unchanging, simple, and straightforward, and would not be easily convinced. It was too dangerous, too elaborate, too strange to work, they claimed. There was much argument also about whether it was honorable to involve the nomads in a potentially dangerous maneuver, but Tiu and his kin proved entirely unruffled by the suggestion (and quite convinced the Fire Nation would be interested in their wares, war or not). Indeed, they accepted Bumi's absurd plan with knowing nods, as if they had all done the same thing dozens of times before, and Bumi found them his only allies in convincing his soldiers of its merits.

Bumi was glad he had not shown the strange letter to anyone else before destroying it; they all assumed it carried some vital reason they needed to free the village. (They were right, of course, but only in that Bumi would be damned before he'd let some stalker rule his life. Whoever had sent the notes had proven helpful in the past, but people only hid if they had something to hide.) More encouraging still, though, was that the more Bumi elaborated on his plan, the more his men seemed to appreciate it. They knew of his delusions of grandeur and penchant for complexity of thought, but to have it presented as a real course of action was something else entirely. Sure, they might all be slain, but they might also all go down in history as the infamously elite non-bender taskforce Bumi had described to them, a potential future that Bumi was not alone in admiring. One by one they joined his cause, and soon it was decided.

The plan cost very little more than raw ingenuity and the cost of nine drab sets of robes from the nomads' supplies (at a two hundred percent markup). Nine soldiers, talented or not, obviously could not face the entire legion of firebenders in open combat, so stealth would be necessary. Their armor instantly gave them away as Earth Army soldiers, but with modestly colored robes (manually tattered at swordpoint) draped over their bodies and believably defeated postures, they could easily pass for harmless peasants. Bumi ignored Tiu's insistence that green was really more his color as he rolled about in the dirt, dirtying his newly acquired burlap cape. He pulled the headband out of his hair, folding it down in a disheveled mess, and applied a few handfuls of gravel for good measure. The men dressed quickly and surveyed one other for any glaring flaws in their disguises. Any armor or weapons that could not be reasonably concealed, including most of the soldiers' pauldrons and Cahim's longbow, had to be left behind in an orderly pile at the base of the cliff.

Suitably dressed, they sat on the ground and reviewed their plan, drawing diagrams and maps in the dirt and looking very much like a council of monks. They argued over some details, but in the end there was only so much they could predict and much of the plan had to be left to improvisation. It was midday when they finally stood and stared significantly at one another for a moment. It was time. Biting back their worries, they ducked beneath the great wooly bellies of the nomads' mandrillephants and latched on, burying themselves in the thick, matted fur. The beasts smelled awful and their massive stomachs fermented with a constant, audible rumble, but from the outside the men were completely invisible beneath the sea of hair.

The mandrillephants shook heartily with every step as the nomads led them towards the village. Bumi and Cahim, sharing the stomach of the largest of the animals, had to wrap their hands tightly in thick cords of dirty fur to avoid being dislodged and Bumi could not help but feel a new respect for the endurance of Mipsie's twins. The nomads made slow time, content to meander and dawdle on their short journey, and the soldiers spent almost a half hour trying to keep the hair out of their mouths and ignore the building fatigue in their arms before the caravan finally reached the guards.

"Good day!" they heard Tiu shout from the head of the procession. The guard's response was too quiet to make out. "Oh no sir! We are but nomads, forever wandering the globe to share our wisdom and our crafts!" There was another muffled response. Though the words were unclear, the guard's immediate annoyance at Tiu's behavior was not. Bumi tensed his body, sinking deeper into the fur. "Well, I should think even the Fire Nation might appreciate the Epic of Galar, or perhaps care to hear how the Lioryx got its horns," Tiu countered. The guard sounded doubtful. "Well of course we have food! We come bearing delicious delicacies from the world over!" This caught their attention. "Why of course! Thank you kindly!" After a brief pause, the mandrillephants started walking again, plodding down the village's main street. Bumi watched the guard's feet slip by ominously.

Between the mandrillephants' column-like legs, Bumi could see soldiers and civilians alike congregating on the sides of the street to watch the bizarre train of brightly dressed nomads and their great mounts. It did not take long to see an opening in the crowd of observers and, after sharing a brief, determined nod, Cahim and Bumi steeled themselves and dropped from their hiding places. In a single, swift movement they rolled out from beneath the mandrillephant and darted into a nearby alley. They ducked behind a pile of refuse and held their breaths for a moment, listening for any sign they had been seen, but nearly a minute passed with no confrontation. They sighed with relief.

"They're back this way," Cahim whispered, pointing towards the building wherein the Fire Nation was storing its blasting jelly. Bumi nodded and the two of them picked their way towards it. They, the twins, and two others were to meet at the explosives as soon as it was safe to do so, while the remaining three were to spread out and take up vantage positions throughout the village. Bumi and Cahim could already hear the nomads and firebenders haggling over various exotic foods, providing more than enough distraction for the time being, but did not risk checking to see if anyone else had dismounted successfully.

It seemed, luckily enough for them, that the Fire Nation felt secure in its control over the village and apparently allowed villagers to leave their homes. Bumi and Cahim nearly knocked over an old peasant woman who had been digging through a garbage pile and pushed onward without a word, leaving her to gawk after them in surprise. They reached the storehouse, an empty granary, with little incident and wasted no time in sneaking through the back door. As Cahim had claimed, dozens and dozens of barrels of blasting jelly were stacked throughout the room, along with racks of weaponry and disassembled siege weapons. The room's sole occupant, an unarmed firebender apparently tasked with tallying the supplies on a little clipboard, had barely enough time to look surprised before the broad side of Bumi's dadao knocked him into unconsciousness. They tossed his body unceremoniously in a nearby pile of hay.

"Keep an eye on things. See if you can find out where they sleep," Bumi grunted, already moving towards the explosive barrels. Cahim nodded his assent and crept towards the front door. After grabbing a great spool of slow-burning wick rope from a hook on the wall, Bumi shifted a few of the barrels to the side, appreciating their unexpected weight, and sandwiched himself within the stack. Safely out of sight, he threw back his hood and set to work.

If nothing else, they would want to destroy the Fire Nation's siege weapons and explosive stores, which would mean at least one set placed across the street, one left within the storehouse, and if possible, one hidden amongst the supply carts in center of the town. If the firebenders were indeed heading to Ba Sing Se (which Bumi didn't doubt in the least), these would be their highest priorities. Better yet, though, would be if they could kill a fair fraction of the Fire Nation troops in one blast; otherwise the village would be left under occupation, merely sans a few buildings. The only chance of that would be to blow up the soldiers' quarters, providing they weren't spread thinly throughout the city.

Luckily, Bumi knew enough about explosives to provide some decent destruction. It helped, of course, that the barrels were practically ready to explode already; they had even been plugged up with putty already. All that remained was to install the fuses and light them, which was in itself a simple matter. Bumi counted out the inked slashes that demarked regular intervals on the spool of fuse, guessing each counted for a few minutes. If they wanted any chance at killing the firebenders in their sleep, the explosions would have to be put several hours. It bore the risk of detection, but Bumi decided it was worth it and counted out eight hours. He cut out several wicks with his sword, then set to prying open the nearest barrel. He pressed the canvas sack that contained the blasting jelly down further, then carefully spooled the long fuse into place, jabbing one end into the sack's cinched opening and the other through the putty in the lid. Reassembling his deadly charge, he shook it vigorously to test its stability and, satisfied, set it aside.

Bumi had finished his second barrel when he heard the back door creak open and shut again as two panting men entered the room. He climbed out of his hiding place, carrying a barrel beneath each arm.

"How are we doing?" he asked.

"Shufu and Xeu are safe but they're caught across the street. Haven't seen the others," Cahim responded, a bit out of breath himself. "I went back and talked to that lady we passed. She said the firebenders sleep in the town hall."

"Good enough for me. You two," Bumi said, pointing to the newly arrived Alam and Duir, "have deliveries to make." (Bumi recalled his own career as a delivery boy.) He grabbed two nearby crates of medical supplies and dumped them onto the ground. He forced the explosive barrels within them and withdrew a small flint from his pocket. Striking it against his short sword blade, he lit both fuses under a shower of sparks. He jammed the crates lids back into place.

"Keep it quiet, hide these on opposite ends of the town center," he ordered. The pair nodded, fearfully eyeing the crates as they took them, and snuck out the way they had come. Bumi returned to the barrels and assembled a third charge, which he again hid within a crate and lit. This one he gave to Cahim to sneak across the street and conceal amongst the catapults resting there. Cahim saluted and he too was gone.

The quiet was almost suffocating while Bumi prepared the final two barrels. Still, the adrenaline that coursed through his body kept him focused and determined. He nearly ran out of fuse and had to cut them with very little slack to make it work, but he managed to construct and costume them just the same. Cahim returned before too long, looking terrified but unhurt. Bumi held out a disguised crate bomb to him as soon as he entered the room.

"This one goes to the supply pile." Cahim looked at him, shocked. In the very center of the village, a mixed force of firebenders and conscripted peasants was loading a stack of supplies at the roadside onto the two rhino-drawn carts, each of which already bore a catapult. If hidden amongst the pile, hopefully the crate would be overlooked and packed onto the carts with everything else. Getting it there unseen, however, was a potentially deadly task, as it was right under the noses of dozens of firebenders.

"I… what?" Cahim asked desperately, his face falling.

"We can't allow them to keep any of their catapults. Do it," Bumi ordered. Cahim took the crate and looked down at it.

"But-" he started.

"Go." Bumi was already in the back of the room, nestling the final explosive discreetly amongst the other barrels, when he finally heard Cahim depart. That done, he took a seat concealed in a corner and waited.

Alam and Duir were the first to return, grinning ear to ear at the success of their mission. Shufu and Xeu, too, finally managed to get across the street unseen and apologized profusely for their tardiness. They were forgiven and they, too, found hiding spots amongst the crowded storehouse. The five of them sat quietly for many minutes, but none of the other men in their unit appeared.

When almost an hour had passed without any new arrivals, Bumi started to worry. Four of their number were still missing. Three, of course, had been instructed to hide throughout the city and might well have done so. There was little excuse for Cahim to have taken so long, however. Bumi felt the tiniest niggling of guilt for sending the boy at all, but quashed it down in the interests of maintaining control. They had to assume the worst, but they could not wait much longer. If the others had been captured, they'd have to leave them behind. Perhaps after the explosives went off that night they could use the chaos for some sort of rescue attempt, but ultimately four lives were not worth jeopardizing their mission. Still, Bumi was hesitant to give up so easily. Cahim was a good scout, excellent at this sort of thing. It was a dangerous task, to be sure, but not too much for the boy, right? Bumi grappled mentally for the right course of action.

Bumi's decision was taken from him when the storehouse's front door opened. Expecting Cahim, Bumi let out a miniature sigh of relief and stood. He was entirely disappointed, then, to see instead Tiu's rail-thin body leaning in the doorframe.

"Hey, thanks again, Friend!" he shouted gaily, "Happy travels!" That was all he said, and he was gone. The five earth soldiers' jaws hung open in disbelief.

"I think it's time to leave," Bumi admitted quietly. They snapped into action and rushed for the back door. In his haste to escape, Bumi nearly tore the door from its hinges instead of merely opening it, and furthermore was entirely unprepared to find himself immediately at spearpoint, face to face with what had to have been ten of the Fire Nation's ugliest soldiers.

"Don't move! Drop your weapons!" one of them shouted, jabbing his pike threateningly within a few inches of Bumi's face. Behind the Fire Nation soldiers, Bumi could see Cahim in shackles, being held from behind by two firebenders. The boy's face was bruised and beaten as he met Bumi's gaze and shrugged in resignation. Bumi frowned at the soldiers for a moment more but could see no other option. Shrugging back, Bumi dropped his weapons and lifted his arms in surrender.

--

A/N: And another chapter arrives. I honestly tried to keep this one shorter, and I somewhat succeeded, but my words have a tendency to get away from me. Oh, and woohoo! 100,000+ words!

Next chapter: Bumi proves a most uncooperative prisoner


	16. XV: Bumi Imprisoned

**Episode XV: Bumi Imprisoned**

90 years ago (Bumi age 23), summer.

--

Fire Nation soldier and villager alike gawked as Bumi and his unit were escorted none-too-gently through the streets in what resembled a glum caricature of a parade. Aside from Cahim, who bore chains on his wrists and ankles and had to be practically dragged along by a burly firebender, they were left to walk under their own power, hands atop their heads and only the threat of abrupt death by fire keeping them in line. One man balanced a fireball threateningly atop the palm he didn't have clamped around Bumi's elbow, as if to remind them of just what might happen if they attempted to run. Bumi quashed the angry rumbling in his gut, passively allowing himself to be guided along, his senses closed to the firebenders' mocking comments. His heart thumped frantically in his chest as his mind rifled through his (distressingly few) remaining options. He inhaled deeply, willing himself back under control.

The procession stopped in front of a gloomy stone building. A faded sign announced it as having once been the town's tavern, but the boards that had been nailed across its largest windows blocked out any welcoming cheer it might have once held. The only sign of life it held at all was the flicker of candlelight through the glass of its single unboarded window, high on the second floor. The prisoners waited in the middle of the street, feeling the sun beat down upon their heads, while a mustached firebender entered the tavern. Their other guards circled the group predatorily, chuckling in barely restrained malevolence as if daring them to make a move. Bumi could hear the frightened panting of Xeu directly behind him, but aside from forcing his shoulders into a less dignified slump, remained outwardly unmoved. His eyes flitted from side to side under their lids, straining to happen upon some observation that might help his situation. Bumi had just begun discreetly scanning the crowd for the three soldiers in his unit that he presumed remained uncaptured when the mustached firebender returned and he was jostled back into movement.

"Captain says interrogate them," the man announced, eliciting a round of disappointed groans from the Fire Nation soldiers.

"That man… Gotto question every fool foolish enough to stumble across our path… Waste of time, I think," the heavyset firebender that now took hold of Bumi's arm complained, shaking his head, "better we should just get rid of them." He jostled the fireball in his hand for emphasis.

"It's just diligence, Fao Zu," the first man replied, waving dismissively. "I'm sure they'll be dealt with before dinner." Fao Zu merely grunted and tightened his grip. Bumi's mind filed this new information into the first flickers of a coarse of action that were coalescing in his head.

At the end of another brief walk, the prisoners were ushered into the village's small prison, a squat, stone building built halfway into the ground, and led to a back room where three prison cells awaited them. The jail's interior was dark and cool, insulated from the sun's warmth by its thick walls, but the look of the cells' jaggedly rusty iron bars erased any comfort the captured soldiers might have felt. They were forced to stand quietly in the center of the room, their hands still on their heads, as Fao Zu and the mustached guard relieved them of their weapons. Bumi gritted his teeth and remained cooperative as Fao pulled the burlap cloak from his body, revealing his concealed swords. The portly firebender's eyes glinted greedily as he noticed Bumi's dadao and it took all of Bumi's self control not to lash out as he felt the weapon pulled from its scabbard.

"Would ya look at this, Khui?" Fao Zu said, admiring the sword's luster in the dim light. "Beautiful." He rubbed his filthy fingers across the broad side of the blade for a moment before handing it to one of the guards. "Put this by my stuff," he ordered. The guard frowned but accepted the sword and walked out of the room without a word, Bumi's eyes trailing him despondently. "Ha!" Fao Zu said, stroking his patchy facial hair happily, "You were right, Khui! _Diligence!_" Bumi clenched his fists.

One by one the prisoners were searched (in a manner most undignified) for anything of value and then herded into two cells on the opposite sides of the room, their armor and weapons claimed by this guard or that and carried off while they looked on hopelessly. After the others had been properly caged, Fao Zu unlocked Cahim's shackles and the injured boy was tossed without preamble into the cell with Bumi and Xeu. He landed in the dirt with a pained 'oof'. Bumi took a seat against the back wall and glowered at the firebenders as they finished dividing up the prisoners' possessions. Soon only Fao Zu and Khui remained.

"Watch 'em, Fao. I'll be right back," Khui ordered, and he too departed. His hefty counterpart nodded glumly and rested his bulk on a small wooden stool at the front of the room. Bumi watched him intensely for many minutes, cautious not to do anything too soon. Only when the man took out the small spyglass he had claimed from Xeu and began experimentally pointing at things around the room did Bumi feel safe to talk.

"Tell me," he breathed in an angry whisper, "that you didn't get captured until _after_ you placed the crate." Cahim nodded wearily, even this small effort exhausting him. Bumi allowed his scowl to lift slightly. Their plan was not lost, then. If they played their proverbial cards right, they could still severely cripple the firebenders and even, if they were lucky, retain their lives. Fortunately, even imprisoned, Bumi held several valuable cards. In less than seven hours, the barrels would explode and they would have an excellent chance to escape. Now it was just a matter of ensuring they lasted that long.

"W-What are we going to do?" It was Xeu. He was staring sightlessly into the abyss, shuddering with worry.

"Shut up," Bumi grunted.

"We have to stay strong, Xeu," Alam called from the other cell. "We'll get through this."

"No, we won't," Bumi growled, raising his voice for their guard's benefit. "We _don't_ have anything of importance to say. They'll find this out soon enough and they'll _kill_ us." Bumi glared at his men severely, hoping they understood what he was trying to tell them. They stared at him with surprised faces. "We're just lost soldiers. What do you _think_ is going to happen to us?" he lied, talking still louder. He saw Fao shift his weight around to watch the confrontation and was encouraged.

"What are you talking about?" Xeu demanded, his voice cracking in desperation. He didn't get it. "Get us out of here! Use your eart-" There was a loud crack as Bumi's fist slammed into Xeu's jaw, sending the smaller man sprawling into the ground next to Cahim.

"You shut up!" Bumi roared, standing over Xeu, fist lofted high. "It's _your_ fault we're in this mess in the first place!" This got everybody shouting, calling Bumi off the attack. Bumi ignored them and stared down at Xeu's cowering form, instilling his pose with as much anger as he could muster. "If we hadn't taken your damnable detour at the Iodo cleft, we'd be in Gaoling by now!" He made as if to punch Xeu again.

There was a great roar and a flash of light as a great plume of flame tore through the air. It licked at the ceiling and Bumi felt the blast of hot air on the back of his neck as he dropped to the ground, shielding his head with his arms. The prisoners quieted.

"Enough!" Fao was standing in a firebending stance, smoke trailing from his fingers and face as red as his uniform. "Quiet down, all of you!" Bumi risked a wary glance up at the charred ceiling, then at the flustered firebender, who panted with the exertion and, after the few seconds of dead silence that followed his outburst, flopped back into his stool, clapping the ash off of his fingers. Fao's beady eyes stared warningly into the cells from within the folds of his smug face.

After a few seconds, Bumi rose to his feet and, with a last meaningful look down at Xeu, reassumed his position in the corner. He rested his head atop his knees and pretended to be downcast, but through the corners of his eyes he was watching the faces of his men for any sign of comprehension. He wished he could explain more clearly, but in earshot of the guard any indication that they were anything but harmless soldiers on their way to Gaoling could be deadly. As long as they kept to the story, however, Bumi could maneuver.

All too soon Khui returned, traded a curt nod with Fao, and began stalking across the line of cells, peering at each of the prisoners in turn. Unlike Fao, Khui had a pleasant enough countenance, his bushy mustache seeming more appropriate for a beloved uncle than a jailor.

"Which one of you is in charge?" he asked after a moment. The men looked to Bumi, who glared unflinchingly up at Khui. The firebender merely nodded in comprehension and pointed a finger at Alam.

"You. Come with us." After a few second hesitance, Alam jutted out his lower jaw in a determined scowl and approached the gate. The firebenders directed him to turn around and insert his hands backwards through the bars, where they were promptly shackled. Bumi stood and leaned against his own cell's bars as Alam was led past. Their eyes met for the briefest moment, and Bumi thought he saw the soldier's left eyelid deliver the subtlest of winks. Bumi restrained his victorious grin and craned his neck to watch Alam disappear down the hallway. The jangling of Alam's shackles had barely left earshot when a new firebender took a seat in Fao's stool. He glowered fiercely at Bumi, who shrugged but obligingly returned to his seat.

The jail was silent. The imprisoned Earth Army soldiers sat as still as they could, dour looks on their face, as they strained their ears to hear any part of Alam's interrogation. Bumi placed a hand against the wall (behind his back, so as to not call attention to his earthbending) to help lend sharpness to the muffled questions and answers being traded a few rooms away, but even he could not distinguish what was being said. For a time the interrogation sounded amicable enough. Ten minutes in, however, Bumi jolted in surprise as he felt a sudden, sharp tremor through the rock, the sort that might come from the impact of a fist or club. He looked warily to the other men but none of them appeared to have heard anything. He kept it to himself. There was no use making them any less comfortable than they already were; they'd find out eventually. There was a long pause, then another impact, then another. Bumi resisted the urge to cringe as his imagination filled in the details.

Forty-five minutes later, a commotion could be heard and the prisoners craned their necks to watch Alam led back to his cell in chains. His right eye and lip were bloodied and hidden beneath a mass of swollen, bruised tissue and he walked with a noticeable limp. He made no effort to resist as the two interrogators ushered him back through the door, unlocked his shackles, and pushed him down in unconcealed disgust. Shufu leapt forward to catch him before he fell and eased him to the floor, clearly greatly relieved to see his brother still alive. Their reunion was cut short as Khui gestured to Shufu who, emboldened by his twin's bravery, had a proud spring in his step as he presented his hands. He was led away.

Bumi did his best to ignore the pained gasps that came from Alam with every breath, Duir's quiet attempts to help the injured man, and most of all Xeu's despondent mewling. He glared at Xeu angrily in an attempt to shut him up, but the soldier was far too busy bemoaning their fate to pay attention.

"What did you tell them?" Bumi finally asked, not bothering to lower his voice. There was a pause.

"Like you said. Gaoling," Alam admitted from the floor, smiling weakly. Bumi nodded his approval.

Bumi absently kneaded the edge of one of his rock-studded bracers between his fingers as he gave his thoughts free reign. He had designed them the previous year after a bust of inspiration; they provided little in the way of armor but nonetheless to a resourceful earthbender (much like Bumi himself) they could be life saving. Indeed, at present Bumi considered them his strongest avenue of escape, and he could not help but feel immensely proud of his decision to make them look unassuming and worthless, mere leather and rock. His foresight might well pay off in a big way.

The Fire Nation had been helpfully lax in its efforts so far; escape was entirely plausible. They did not, as far as he could tell, know that he was an earthbender and thus hardly restrained by a stone building, did not know that their town was rigged to explode while they slept that evening, did not know that he had three men still uncaptured, had let him keep his custom bracers, and on top of all that appeared to be unenthusiastic about their interrogation duties, only attending to them because of some higher, more diligent bureaucracy. Bumi held more than enough advantages; all that remained was waiting for the proper moment and surviving long enough to reach it. He had no great doubts that, as soon as the Fire Nation felt certain they had nothing to tell them, they would die. But how long would that be? Interrogating Earth Army soldiers was widely considered an exercise in futility; it was only the Fire Nation captain's (well-founded, in this case) suspicions in finding a small force so far from the stronghold cities that kept Bumi and his men alive. It was paramount, then, that Bumi nurture these suspicions long enough to engineer an escape. But could Bumi's men drag out the process without revealing any crippling secret?

The twins, Bumi knew, he could trust; they were oafs but they were stubborn, hardy oafs that would never buckle under torture. Duir, too, was a safe bet; he was too principled to do anything he viewed as a betrayal of his soldierly vows. Cahim and Xeu, however, worried him deeply. The former had already suffered a vicious beating at the hands of the Fire Nation today; the latter was a paranoid ninny, all too quickly succumbing to desperation. It was hard to know how much punishment either of them would take before breaking down. Bumi hoped he would be questioned before them.

And so Bumi patiently waited his turn. Shufu returned, a little worse for wear than his brother had, and Duir was taken. Bumi tried to count the minutes as they passed; wishing the prison had a window through which he could see the sun. He watched the firebender guard intensely, taking the opportunity each time the man was distracted scratching his nose or adjusting the crotch of his armored pants to scoop a bit more of the fine silt that covered the floor into the cuffs of his bracers. Little by little he layered the dirt, earthbending it into a solid band concealed from the outside world beneath the leather of his armguards, until his wrists felt quite heavy indeed. Bumi did his best to control the thunderous beating of his own heart.

The smell of burnt flesh entered the room before Duir did. It was a scent with which the prisoners were all well familiar, and smelling it, even Bumi looked up in concern. Fao Zu looked positively livid as he dragged Duir along by his armpit. Khui's face, too, was creased in disappointment as he opened the gate. Fao unlocked the handcuffs slung Duir back into the cell, and were it not for the moan that escaped his throat as he hit the ground, Bumi might have thought him unconscious or worse. His face had been thoroughly pummeled like the twins' before him, but more seriously much of his shirt had been burned away, revealing a circular, fist-sized burn mark purpling across his chest. Bumi stared at the damage without comment. No doubt Duir, stubbornly idealistic as he was, had infuriated the firebenders with his self-righteous platitudes, and had paid the price.

Khui pointed at Bumi.

"Your turn, leader," he said. Bumi nodded and, steeling himself, turned around and inserted his hands through the bars, hoping against all hope that the firebenders would be too stupid and distracted to remove his bracers. He felt the unpleasant heat of Fao's chubby fingers ratchet the shackles right across his wrists, clamping them overtop of the bracers without a care. Bumi grinned inwardly even as Fao tightened the shackles to an almost intolerable extent.

Bumi put on the proper mask of abject fear as the firebenders manhandled him out of his cell. He felt the gaze of his men upon his back. Fao and Khui led him through a short stone corridor to the other side of the building, where another room of cells, identical to the first, awaited him. As he passed the prison's doorway he managed a quick glimpse at the sky; it was late afternoon, probably still a full four hours until his crates were set to explode. He took a few deep breaths as he accepted this fact. It was going to be a long, painful afternoon.

--

Khui and Fao led him into one of the cells and forced him down onto an uncomfortable wooden stool. Khui reached through the bars and locked the door, trapping all three inside, then thrust the key into his pocket. The two firebenders took their places and stared down at Bumi, who returned their gaze, unafraid. They remained like this for over a minute, their eyes never leaving one another's faces. Fao was still red-faced with anger (or exhaustion) and frowned deeply, showing his teeth. Khui, on the other hand, looked calm and collected. The seconds dragged by.

"Nice moustache," Bumi finally said, nodding to Khui.

"Thank you. Shall we begin?"

"Oh, do let's." Bumi rolled his eyes at the courtesy.

"Who are you and what are you doing here!?" Fao barked, already summoning fire to his palm.

"I've always been more of a beard man," Bumi admitted, ignoring him. He thrust out his chin in example. "I think I prefer them a bit longer than you fieries do, certainly longer than Jumbo's there," he indicated Fao with his head. The rotund firebender backed up, affronted, and immediately put a hand to his (indeed rather delicate) beard. "I've always thought about growing one," Bumi continued, pretending not to notice. He crossed his eyes to look down at his chin. Khui watched quietly, a slightly amused look on his face.

"Now see here!" Fao started to interject, having recovered from his embarrassment.

"You know what you guys do have the right way of in the wide world of facial hair?" Bumi asked Khui, again interrupting. "_Sideburns_. If there weren't a war on, I'd grow me some of those in a heartbeat. As it is, though, don't want to be called a sympathizer. You understand." He winked theatrically.

"Enough!" Fao roared and struck Bumi, hard, across the cheek. Bumi had not been prepared for it (though in retrospect, he probably should have been) and nearly fell off of his stool. He tasted blood as he slowly lifted his head to glower up at Fao. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" the firebender repeated, looking particularly proud of himself. Bumi did not answer for some seconds, until Fao again summoned a lick of flame to his hand and held it dangerously close to his eyes.

"Alright, alright," he placated. "I know the drill. I'm supposed to tell you my name, rank, and unit, then you'll demand more, then I'll just repeat myself, then you'll hurt me, and so on, and so forth, so here we go: My name is Captain Bizzorzix and I am in the eleventh platoon of the southern division of the Earth Army." He bowed his head patronizingly (at least he hoped it was patronizingly; it was surprisingly hard to mock one's enemies without use of one's arms). "Your turn."

"Not good enough."

"See?" Fao punched him again.

"Why are you here, 'Captain Bizzorzix'?" Khui asked, stepping in. "This hardly seems like a safe place for Earth Kingdom soldiers." Bumi snorted.

"Yeah, I noticed. We got lost. We were on our way to Gaoling and one of my men claimed he knew a shortcut at Iodo Cleft. We took it, and here we are." He paused, considering his next words carefully. "I said Iodo Cleft, right?" Khui nodded. "Good, good. That's what I wanted to say." Khui's brows furrowed suspiciously. Bumi looked up at him in mock innocence. "You might as well just let us go. We don't pose any threat." He made his face look hopeful with just the slightest modicum of smugness as further bait. Khui took it.

"_Why_ were you on your way to Gaoling?" he asked quietly. Fao put a hand on his partner's shoulder.

"_Who cares_ why they were on their way to Gaoling?" he asked, imitating Khui's tone. "This one's making it easy for us. If he wants us to kill him, let's kill him and move on; I don't want to be doing this all day."

"I don't recall asking you to kill me. _I_ suggested letting me go," Bumi supplied helpfully.

"You shut up. He knows he's got nothing, he knows he's dead," Fao reasoned, gesticulating to emphasize his point. Khui stroked his moustache contemplatively.

"Indeed, he does seem suspiciously accepting of that possibility. Something is wrong. If he wants us to kill him, he must have a good reason." Fao struck his forehead in disbelief.

"You're insane."

"No no, not fully insane," Bumi piped up, causing both of the firebenders to look at him in surprise. "Perhaps I have a plan I'm willing to die for. But then, why would I mention it to you? Still, mighty suspicious."

"I agree," Khui said, nodding and regarding Bumi as one might a particularly vexing puzzle.

"On the other hand, your forces clearly outnumber mine. Any plan I made beforehand would surely have taken that into account. Surely I wouldn't plan on anything that would cost me my own life."

"Thank you!" Fao said, nodding emphatically. "See, this guy knows what he's talking about. Let's move on." Khui held up a hand and turned to Bumi, gesturing to him to go ahead and make his next point. Bumi could not help but grin.

"But maybe my forces aren't as small as you think. You caught six of us, but which six? How many sixes remain free? Six sixes? Sixty-six sixes? Maybe I am willing to die so that the sixes you haven't captured may finish what we six started." Fao deflated. His beady eyes flitted back and forth, trying to follow Bumi's arguments. Khui stroked his moustache, clearly pondering them as well (with considerably more success, or so it seemed).

"And what did you six start, if you were merely on your way to Gaoling?" Khui asked. Bumi grinned mischievously.

"Not a thing. We're just lost," he lied. There was a pregnant pause. After many seconds, Khui shrugged, withdrew his key, and reached to unlock the cell. Fao's relief was evident, Bumi's terror and disappointment less so.

"Very well then, I suppose we're done."

"On the other hand," Bumi interjected suddenly, attempting to drag the conversation on, "if we were lost, why would be lost in disguise, and why would we enter a village so obviously under Fire Nation control?" Khui had a victorious look on his face as he locked the door again; Bumi suspected this was exactly the response he expected. Fao's shoulders, on the other hand, slumped down in defeat.

"Good questions. Well?" Khui asked.

"It's possible," Bumi started, encouraged, "that we _weren't_ in disguise, and had merely acquired cloaks to defend against the cold. We _were_ headed to Gaoling, after all."

"Except that all of you were wearing full Earth Army uniforms, sans pauldrons," Khui countered. "You could easily strap the pauldrons on over the cloaks, or just force them on underneath, but you didn't because they would give away your identity."

"I concede the point," Bumi said, dipping his head in deference, "We were in disguise. But from whom? The Southern Earth Kingdom isn't the safest place for Earth Army troops, Fire Nation or not. There could be bandits, defectors, and who knows what else? The army hardly watches the area."

"Exactly why we're here," Khui admitted. "You've assumed that the Si Wong made the area not worth our time?"

"Hey, hey, hey," Bumi said, sensing a trap. "You haven't yet proven that it was the Fire Nation we were worried about."

"You knew, then, that the Fire Nation was in the area?"

"I never said that. We _did_ know there were freedom fighters in the area, though. Best to keep our heads down, lest we lose them."

"You're going to lose your head NOW if you don't start talking!" Fao roared, interrupting them as he muscled his way back into the interrogation process. He struck Bumi in the side of the head hard enough to knock him off the stool. Bumi sprawled down onto the ground and attempted to shield his head between his shoulders as Fao unleashed a string of vicious kicks to his ribs and stomach. Khui made no attempt to stop the attack and Bumi was left to ponder (in between mind-numbing jolts of pain) how someone who looked so pathetically out of shape could strike so very hard. After some seconds of this, Fao apparently assumed his point made and hauled Bumi back into his seat, battered and unsteady.

"If you'd just p-" Bumi had to lick his split lower lip to force the words out, "pay attention, you'd realize that I've _been_ talking for twenty minutes now." His speech was slurred but the sentiment was clear.

"I have a new question," Khui announced as if nothing had happened. "Why did we find you leaving the storeroom?" Bumi shrugged.

"Why not? Big room, only one guard."

"Surely you noticed the blasting jelly."

"I noticed," Bumi admitted.

"And?"

"And what? I already told you, we got lost on our way to Gaoling." Khui frowned.

"To what end?"

"You can't guess?" Khui stroked his moustache contemplatively.

"I'm going to guess you are scouts and you snuck into the village to count our assets." Bumi merely shrugged again. He let the silence ripen for a moment before speaking.

"But then what were the nomads for?" Khui's eyes widened.

This process went on for some time. Khui and Bumi would talk through the many possibilities, the firebender steadily whittling down Bumi's concerns, and then, just as soon as Khui seemed to have figured it out, Bumi would introduce some new factor that they had not yet discussed and they would have to return to the beginning, a whole new pile of hypothetical nuances to eliminate. They discussed the morality of using the civilian nomads in war, the military history of the nomads themselves, the general state of the war in the south, the fate of the southern Water Tribe (perhaps, Bumi had supposed, they were off to meet a small Water Tribe fleet), the freedom fighters, basic Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom strategy, and more. As their topics got more and more widespread, Bumi began to suspect that Khui was enjoying himself. Truth be told, Bumi was too. He was eating up the Fire Nation's precious time, as per his plan, and learning a great deal about the Fire Nation and its tactics in the process. So long as he kept his mind sharp, he even caught the occasional dropped hint about current Fire Nation movements, though these were few and far between.

Indeed, the only major downside was Fao's presence. The larger firebender found himself utterly incapable of keeping up with the two more eloquent men and became more and more agitated as the interrogation winded onwards. His quiet, snide mutterings and angry grunts were largely ignored by Khui and Bumi, but every once in a while he would remind them of his existence by accusing Bumi of a lie and viciously beating him. Each time, Bumi would maintain as much composure as he could, outwait the assault, and then calmly continue from where he left off. This became harder each time, however, and when Fao finally slammed a burning fist between Bumi's shoulder blades, leaving a massive welt of charred skin, Bumi could not help but cry out. Again he tried his hardest to proceed unperturbed, but the blistering skin sent such a great stitch of pain lancing across his back with every inhalation that he struggled to choke out his words. After some minutes of this, Khui (looking, Bumi thought, rather frustrated with his partner) finally called the interrogation finished.

Though clearly very pleased to finally escape Khui and Bumi's elaborate wordplay, Fao was still sputtering mad as he lugged Bumi back towards his cell. Mostly out of spite, Bumi pretended to be on the verge of unconsciousness, refusing to use his legs at all and essentially forcing Fao to carry him. Like those before him, he was tossed roughly back behind bars, hands finally freed. He imagined his soldiers' stares on him as he rested face down in the dirt and only allowed himself to move when he heard Khui summon Xeu for questioning.

"Do we have to do this?" Fao whined aloud. "I want dinner."

"Yes, we _have_ to do this," Khui snapped. "We hardly got anywhere with _Bizzorzix_ here. You could stand to miss a meal or two anyway."

Bumi turned himself enough around to glare at Xeu, very much willing his gaze to express the pain he planned on inflicting on the panicky soldier, should he ruin their plans. Xeu's eyes widened but he made no further response other than to increase the volume of his ineffectual gasping as he was led from the room. Confident that he'd done all he could, Bumi let his torso slump back down, exhausted. The others were silent.

"Bumi," Cahim asked quietly after a minute or two, "Are you alright?"

"How long was I in there?" Bumi asked.

"I don't know… Two hours?"

"I'm okay for now then. Ask me again after Xeu screws us over."

--

In truth, Xeu's interrogation ended up the shortest by far, but to Bumi, time seemed to drag on and on. He did not move from his position on the floor (at least partly, he told himself, as a tactic) other than to pour a handful of the cold dirt into the stinging welt on its back, recalling how vital it was to cool burned tissue down as soon as possible, lest it continue to smolder beneath the skin. The mere weight of the sand was incredibly painful, but Bumi gritted his teeth and endured it. He ground his forehead into the floor, willing his many aches and pains to recede with all of his might. The likelihood that they could escape without at least a little violence was very slim; a prospect that seemed more and more daunting now that they were all so injured. Despite every square inch of his body demanding to sleep off its injuries, something told Bumi he'd merely scratched the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and so he concentrated on counting, on a drawing a mental map of the Earth Kingdom, on reciting the eighty-five jings in reverse order, on anything that would distract his mind sufficiently.

Pain or not, Bumi finally swiveled his body into a sitting position when he heard the jangling of Xeu's shackles returning. He winced as the pile of sand on his back sloughed off (along with some quantity of skin he did not care to estimate). He stared severely up at Xeu, who was quaking profusely and sporting a glistening burn mark across the left side of his neck. Other than the small burn, however, he appeared largely uninjured and walked with little trouble. Bumi said nothing as Xeu's handcuffs were unlocked and he stumbled into the cell, where he immediately fell to his knees and leaned against the wall in an attempt to still his shudders. Bumi could not help but notice that Xeu had been spared the rough push into the ground each of the others had suffered. He narrowed his eyes in angry suspicion. The firebenders stood back and, instead of summoning Cahim for his turn, merely waited and observed, self-accomplished looks on their faces. Bumi didn't like where this was going. Judging by the fleeting glances Fao kept giving him, they were expecting some sort of response.

Obligingly, Bumi rose (a little shakily) to his feet and staggered to where Xeu was still hyperventilating between the bars. He tried to ignore his audience as he grabbed Xeu by the shoulder and turned him around, forcing him to make eye contact.

"What. Did. You. Tell. Them?" he asked quietly, inserting an ominous pause in between each word." Xeu's eyes were wide.

"N-nothing!" he squeaked. Bumi stared at the firebenders through the corner of his eye.

"Nothing?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

"_Nothing_," Xeu confirmed, jerking his head in a twitchy nod. "_You're_ scarier than anything they did to me." Bumi smiled, surprised.

"Damn right." He patted Xeu's shoulder in a comradely fashion, watching the soldier visibly relax, overcome by relief. He released his grip and sat back on the ground. Meeting Khui's disappointed frown with a victorious grin. The way the firebender's face fell confirmed it; he had clearly been banking on Bumi not believing the panicky soldier, and perhaps revealing something in his rage.

"I suppose we're done here," he said to Fao in one last attempt. "That one gave us all we need." Bumi looked up at him and, once again, shrugged with as much irritating nonchalance as he could muster. There was a long pause. Khui's frown deepened further and, defeated, he strode from the room, Fao hot on his tail.

--

The six imprisoned soldiers were quiet. They sat on the floors of their cells, staring into the ground and trying to ignore the smell of delicious flame-roasted meat wafting in from the village and the ravenous growls of their stomachs. The lone firebender left behind to keep watch over them had long since lost interest and rested his back against the wall behind him, eyes closed. He shifted on his stool every once in a while as he tried to get a comfortable sleeping position, so Bumi kept quiet. As he waited, Bumi slowly fashioned a bandage out of torn strips of his cloak and tied it over his burn, securing it beneath his left armpit and around his right shoulder. The slight pressure hurt, but seemed to compress the previously sharp pain into a dull ache. This accomplished, Bumi waited, biding his time by kneading the pain out of his limbs.

Ten minutes had passed since the last time the firebender had moved. Bumi coughed experimentally, quietly at first but then louder and louder, until he sounded on death's doorstep. His men looked at him with concerned confusion, but their guard did not stir. It was time.

"So men, what do you say we get the hell out of here?" They stared at him, eyes wide and grins wider, and Bumi could not help but smile back. He rose to his feet, gesturing to the others not to move, and approached the cell door. The iron bars were rusty and ancient, it was true, but far too thick for Bumi to break. Nonetheless, the jail had not been built to detain earthbenders and would not do so now. While Bumi could simply smash a hole in the back wall, he figured the noise would be far too obvious and that a more subtle egress was necessary. Luckily, the steel bars that locked them in were anchored only shallowly into the floor and ceiling. Bumi took a deep breath and, slowly drawing his toe across the bottom edge of the door, sent a narrow crack fissuring through the jail's foundations. There was a satisfying pop as each of the bars' ends was freed from the rock, vibrating the whole front face of the cell like a giant tuning fork. Bumi repeated the process on the ceiling and then, with a muffled 'oof' as another spike of pain criss-crossed his back, slowly lifted the entire cell wall out of its groove.

Ever so carefully, Bumi slid the two hundred pounds or so of interlocking iron bars to one side, careful not to let it scrape the floor too noisily. Their guard did not stir. The other prisoners silently cheered Bumi on as he stooped to grab a heaping handful of dirt and compressed it solid within his fist. He crept up to the firebender, grinning madly, and jabbed him in the shoulder with two fingers. The man jolted awake.

"Good morning!" Bumi said brightly as he brought the stone down on the back of the man's skull. He slumped down again, instantly unconscious. "Good night." Bumi pulverized his stone back into dust, clapping it onto the floor, and then did his best to arrange the man's limp body back into a believable sleeping position. With his head leaned back into a corner, the great bruise spreading from where Bumi had struck him was completely obscured.

Bumi turned back to the cells and delivered an elaborate bow. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, staving off the pain of Fao's beatings, and he immediately began cracking open the other cell. His heart descended down into his stomach, however, when he heard the sound of many marching feet approaching.

"Bumi!" Cahim hissed, "They're coming!" As quick as he was able, Bumi rushed to undo all he had done. He barely managed to prop the removed door back into place and dive to the ground, and was still reassuming his seriously injured position when the firebenders entered the room.

Eighteen Fire Nation soldiers, all fully armored in their elaborately spiked uniforms, strode into the jail. They assumed two orderly lines and turned to stare at the prisoners through the eye slots of their skull-like masks. Bumi pretended to be only just now awakening from sleep, but quickly found the charade unnecessary; none of the newcomers seemed to take any notice of the cracks in the floor (hastily covered by a thin layer of dirt), nor the "sleeping" guard, but merely stared forward, unmoving as monoliths. Bumi had a sneaking worry that they were a firing squad (though why eighteen firebenders were necessary, he did not know.)

Khui and Fao entered the room.

"That bastard Azto took it; I know it. It was on _my_ bed, that makes it _mine_!" Fao was explaining to his partner, who was staring severely down at Bumi, as one might stare at a snake that might or might not be poisonous. "I swear, when I catch that bastard I am going to-" Fao continued until Khui cut him off with a curt hand gesture.

"You…" Khui ordered, "come with us." Bumi's eyes widened in surprise. "Now." Bumi nodded dumbly and lifted himself to his feet, shaking theatrically with the effort. As before, he thrust his hands between two of the bars where, as before, the shackles were applied directly over his dirt-laden bracers. Bumi winced nervously at how the now only loosely attached cell wall creaked as Khui opened the door, but thankfully nobody appeared to notice. Bumi's last view as he was dragged from the room was the hopeless looks of confusion on his soldiers' faces.

--

It was evening; the sun had slipped beneath the hills to the west and a cool darkness was overtaking the land. Bumi was led along rather roughly by Khui and Fao, while two of the faceless shock troops followed solemnly behind. The five of them wove their way through the town, reemerging on the main road and heading for the opposite side. Bumi strained his eyes to look for anything that might help him; hopefully some sign that his other three soldiers were still safe and free somewhere in the village.

"I swear," Fao continued as soon as they were out of the prison. "Azto is not going to get away with this. That dadao is worth a fortune to the right buyers back at home. How does he think he'll sneak it by me, hmm?" he asked Khui hypothetically. "It's too big. Oh yes, when I get my hands on him he will rue the day he stole from _me_, oh yes." Bumi smiled as realization dawned. His stolen dadao had been reclaimed. His men _were_ still here. He found himself straining to catch the glint of his beautiful sword in the darkness of nearby windows, despite himself.

"So what's the deal, Khui?" Bumi finally asked. "Figure something out?"

"Shut up," Fao interjected. "Captain wants to speak with you." Bumi groaned and purposefully tripped again, nearly knocking Fao down in the process (and eliciting quite a round of profanity). So… the Fire Nation captain wanted to speak with him, no doubt wanted to cut his own intellectual teeth in his own interrogation. Bumi sighed inwardly as his escorts finally turned and led him to the second story of the converted tavern they had passed earlier that day. A second interrogation was not the end of the world. He had survived one already; he could survive another. His plans were not yet lost.

--

Bumi's confidence did not last long after meeting the captain, however. In fact, a great deal of it bled out the instant he set eyes on the man's very familiar, pale-skinned, dark-haired, boyish face. As soon as they arrived, Fao and Khui descended the staircase again to stand guard at the door, leaving only the two masked guards to keep Bumi upright as he, buckled down on his knees as if in reverence, faced his friend once again.

"Good evening, _'Captain Bizzorzix'_," Kuzon said from where he stood behind a large wooden desk. His voice contained a mocking sort of absence. For his part, Bumi merely smiled wryly at the improbability of his own mistake.

"Bad choice of pseudonym, huh?" he offered in the same sort of mock politeness. "Am I to assume that's why a battalion of firebenders is now guarding the prison?" Kuzon nodded.

"I am not going to underestimate you, Bumi." Khui glared challengingly at Bumi. "And I am not going to fall for your injured act, either, so drop it." Bumi sighed.

"Okay," he pouted, shaking the firebenders' grips from his arms and standing under his own power. Kuzon had a victorious glint in his eyes as he slumped down in the chair behind his desk and met Bumi's stare again. There was a long, awkward silence.

"You look terrible, Kooz," Bumi said, and he meant it. Kuzon's eyes were rimmed with dark circles and his posture lacked the proud regality it had always held. Kuzon rested his elbows on his desk and cradled his head. He sighed.

"It is a hard life, leading an army," he offered, shrugging weakly. "It is harder than we used to pretend." Bumi nodded, his mind recalling the military games they had once played as the Trio of Valor. He could not help smiling at the memory. "Besides," Kuzon continued, a similar smile on his face, "you have seen better days too, I think." Bumi nodded, licking his split lip experimentally.

"I have your men to thank for that."

"I am not so sure…" Kuzon replied, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "I have always thought you looked a little… _off_." Bumi pretended to be affronted.

"Surely you jest!" he said, "you yourself once said yellow was my color!" He puffed out his chest and jerked his head downwards, gesturing towards the exposed collar of his omnipresent yellow vest. The reference was not lost on Kuzon and his face fell. Bumi stared at him with vicious intensity, watching as the color seemed to drain from his skin. The mood in the room took a definite downward turn, and even the candles that lined the walls seemed to flicker a bit dimmer.

Kuzon looked away first and focused his attention instead on something to his right. Bumi suspected he was merely unwilling to meet his gaze, and pressed the 'attack', glowering at the left side of Kuzon's face with renewed fervor. They stayed like this for some minutes. Finally, Kuzon sighed and met Bumi's gaze again, but Bumi refused to be softened by the regret he could see in his friend's eyes.

"What are we going to do, Bumi?" he asked quietly. He let the true meaning of his question remain unsaid. What would the nature of their relationship be? Was there any hope of reconciliation?

"I'll tell you what _I'm_ going to do," Bumi started. Kuzon seemed to intuit his mood from his voice and frowned. "_I'm_ going to spend the rest of my life sending you and all the rest of you fire-eating, town-burning, lying, hypocritical, racist bastards back where you belong." There was a short pause during which Kuzon again rose to his feet, a new strength and conviction in his stance. His brow furrowed and the tiredness in his face was instantly replaced by proud decisiveness.

"Very well," he nodded, accepting Bumi's anger. "Here is what _I_ am going to do. _I _am going to give you a chance to tell me what you are doing here, and then when you refuse, I am going to kill you." He said the words without any particular malice, which made them seem all the more serious. "I am sure you have done something that will cost me much,"

"I have," Bumi confirmed, his voice laced with hate.

"And I doubt my men have the time to discover what it is."

"They don't."

"But I do not think I can force you to tell me."

"You can't."

"I _do_ think I can be rid of you, though, accept whatever damage your legacy sows, and move on." Bumi had no retort to that and merely watched wordlessly as Kuzon walked around his desk to approach him. Bumi's fists clenched behind his back. Any second now, he would have to make his move. He tensed as the guard to his right grabbed onto his shoulder with a vice-like grip. Kuzon stopped some ten feet away. The two friends stared at one another. Kuzon's eyebrows raised in an unsaid question. Bumi looked away in an unsaid answer. Kuzon sighed.

"I am sorry, Bumi," he said, and a handful of flame materialized in his upraised palm.

"Tell it to Aang." In a single, swift motion, Bumi earthbended the sand out of his right bracer, thinning his wrist enough for him to slide it out of its shackle. He swung the heavy metal handcuffs from his left arm like a chain flail, catching one of the guards in the face before any of them realized what was happening. A spray of sand and blood arced through the room and the guard toppled down the open stairwell with a crash. Bumi dropped to the ground a split second before Kuzon's jet of flame roared past. His hand met the stone floor hard, sending a great ripple tearing towards Kuzon, who lost his footing and stumbled backwards over his desk. Time seemed to stand still as Bumi sprung up from his crouch, slamming the crown of his head against the bottom of the second guard's chin. Bumi's knee found its way into the man's armored stomach a mere instant later, causing him to double over in pain. One savage left hook and a rough shoulder later had the firebender crashing through the room's single glass window and falling to the ground two stories below, where he impacted with a painful thud.

The entire process took only a few noisy seconds, and was followed by a moment of such utter silence that the whole of the Spirit World seemed to have gasped in surprise. Bumi had only an instant to be shocked at his own success before the room filled with fire. Bumi dove to the ground, the impact of his body again causing a great shudder to shoot through the stone floor, and rolled to the side. Kuzon ignored the shaking building; his face drawn into a determined scowl as he lobbed a blistering barrage of fireballs across the room. Bumi could hear footsteps rushing up the staircase and confused shouting from outside, but he ignored it, keeping all of his focus on avoiding a fiery death. Punching his hands into the floor, Bumi tore out a great slab of rock and pitched it through an incoming wave of flame. Kuzon leapt from the projectile's path and it crashed through the rear wall, snapping through the wooden beams like matchsticks. The building started to creak.

Each time Kuzon's fire struck the room, it swallowed itself up almost as fast as it had appeared. The firebender spent as much time controlling the fire's destruction as he did dolling it out, and though the room was full of flammable books and furniture, it remained completely undamaged. Bumi had no such compunction and tore through the floor with reckless abandon. The building protested with a great groan as Bumi stomped down atop the stairwell, causing it to fall to pieces atop the firebenders rushing to Kuzon's aid. Anger pounded through Bumi's head with such strength that he did not notice the building starting to list to one side.

"Bumi!" Kuzon shouted as the floor began to tilt more and more obviously. Bumi did not respond other than to hurl another piece of the room at him. With a resolute frown, Kuzon leapt to safety and continued the attack.

"Bumi!" a voice called out from outside. Bumi risked a glance outside of the skewed window. One of his men was standing below the building, holding a long, wrapped package. "Catch!" Bumi had just enough time to comply, snatching the item out of the air and rolling to avoid another blast of fire. He tore the wrapping away and grinned viciously as the dadao settled into its comforting position in his hands. The firelight danced off of its blade and Bumi advanced on Kuzon, swinging the sword about aggressively. If Kuzon was frightened at all, though, he did not show it.

That is, until a great, resounding boom sounded from outside. The blast shook the town, knocking the two friends-turned-enemies off of their feet. Through the holes that peppered the tavern's walls, Bumi and Kuzon could see a great column of fire and smoke rising into the nighttime sky. Kuzon stared at Bumi incredulously. Another explosion sounded, followed by another, as the town center and the dozens of firebenders within burst into a great, fiery cloud of flying shrapnel.

The tavern's upper story began to slip as the building began to collapse under its own weight, but Bumi paid it no mind. The floor was nearly vertical as he swung his blade at Kuzon's neck, missing his mark as the firebender slid downwards and jumped to the safety of the ground. The building came down with a crash, shaking Bumi loose. He hit the ground like a meteor, sending a great crack spidering through the ground. His anger-addled mind ignored the pain and he was immediately on his feet, peering through the falling debris for his quarry. He spotted Kuzon helping several other firebenders put out the burning town center, funneling the heat of the blaze harmlessly into the sky. With a growl, Bumi lurched forward.

Bumi cut down three Fire Nation soldiers without a thought as he dashed towards Kuzon. Another crate exploded, reducing the supply carts and their catapult cargo to burning timber. Bumi launched himself at his foe, swinging his sword like a bat. It was only Kuzon's timely duck that saved him from a swift decapitation. Kuzon whirled about and kicked Bumi in the jaw with astonishing strength, sending the larger man toppling to the ground. Kuzon's face was driven as he sprinted towards the next nearest fire; he had forgotten all about their fight, a fact that angered Bumi all the more. The last and mightiest of the explosions erupted from the storehouse like a great volcano, filling the sky with flame so bright it looked like high noon.

Bumi was lifting himself to his feet to pursue Kuzon again when he felt someone grab onto his arms from behind. He whirled around with a vicious snarl and attempted to break his captor's grip, but the stranger was quickly joined by another and held fast. Bumi struggled violently.

"Bumi, it's us!" he recognized Alam's voice. "We have to go!" Bumi refrained from jabbing his sword back through Alam's torso, but struggled violently, shouting out every expletive he had ever learned at the top of his voice, as he was dragged to safety.

--

A/N: And another chapter is complete! Lots of dialog in this one, which is a bit contrary to my usual philosophy, but I felt it was necessary (and hopefully it turned out entertaining).

Let's see… First of all, several concepts in this chapter were inspired by ardy1's awesome fanfics, Prison Conversations and Cog in the Machine. I would be remiss not to point that out and send you to go read them, for they are definitely two of the best Avatar fanfics out there.

Also, while I'm pretty much a one story guy, I have been pondering the merits of several other Avatar-y writings, namely a second chapter to my _other_ Bumi story (wherein Toph and Bumi decide the title of world's greatest earthbender once and for all), a short story about Combustion Man's origins, and/or a short story about Sokka set within season 3. Any thoughts?

Next chapter: Bumi rises through the ranks, but power struggles leave him frustrated.


	17. XVI: Bumi versus the Earth Kingdom

**Episode XVI: Bumi vs the Earth Kingdom**

87 years ago (Bumi age 26), early fall.

--

Bumi's towering shadow reached across the continent. Mountains and valleys, forests and grasslands, the swamp that had nearly killed him some years earlier, Bumi stared down upon it all with a self-satisfied arrogance. He was enormous, he was invincible, his will was law. He smiled at the little Omashu, nestled amongst foothills only precipitous to the non-giant. His home he would spare, but the handful of Fire Nation bases that now blemished the Earth Kingdom's southern shore would not be so lucky. With a slow, steady movement of his colossal hand, Bumi took hold of the largest outpost, a shipyard just east of Chin village. The Fire Nation soldiers' screams for mercy fell upon deaf ears as Bumi clenched his fist, crushing the life out of the entire base. Ships, barely figurines from Bumi's vantage point, cracked and fell apart. The coast eroded as the base was pulverized to dust and swept out into the sea. Bumi's laughter echoed across the planet as thousands of firebenders were swallowed up by the Earth, so loudly that he did not hear the General until the third time he'd been addressed.

"Colonel!" Bumi snapped out of his daydream in an instant and found himself staring into the very frustrated face of General Shivi. He did his best to look embarrassed and penitent, but even as he did so gently slammed a fist down into the table, restoring the shattered naval base to its rightful position on the enormous stone map before he could be blamed for its disappearance.

"Sir, it is impossible to be sure," he immediately blurted in response to the asked question (he _had_ been listening, sortof), "but my scouts suggest they are attempting to establish a permanent position on the southern end of the pass. At least one turret has already been constructed, with two or more on their way." Shivi glared as if it were Bumi's fault the Fire Nation had advanced so far so quickly, but gave a professional nod and shifted his attention to the next colonel's reports, leaving Bumi to slump back into the depths of his seat and drift away from the meeting again.

They'd only been seated in the great canvas war tent in Shivi's base for two hours (and indeed the meeting had really only begun in earnest when the King had arrived, about an hour ago), but to Bumi it already felt like a lifetime. Every insight and plan of attack he'd offered had been quickly and entirely shut down, and he could not help but think they could ignore him just as easily were he in the field with his troops, getting things done. Considering the dangerous secret he'd discovered, he had hoped beyond hope that the generals would listen to reason and save their own lives, but it was becoming increasingly clear that that wasn't going to happen and now it was just a matter of waiting until they made their rejection official. He shifted forward, resting his head and elbows on the edge of the great circular map that had been summoned from the ground to act as a table for the dozen or so attendees.

Ever since he and his scouting party had stumbled, injured but alive, through Omashu's gates with news of a major new Fire Nation offensive, Bumi had steadily risen through the ranks to become one of the key officers in charge of defending the southern Earth Kingdom. Kuzon's force had been the first, but had not been alone, and similar armies of infantry and siege weapons had spent the last three years securing town after town and establishing garrisons such that everything between the Si Wong and the ocean found itself securely within their grip. The Earth Kingdom was striking back where it could, desperate not to cede any more territory, but every day the Fire Nation's fleets of ships brought fresh supplies and men, and every day they fell further and further behind.

Bumi himself had been given command of a small army and tasked with maintaining control over one of the largest mountain passes in the area. Several such armies had established bases throughout the region in the hope of containing the Fire Nation spread, a tactic which Bumi found disgustingly typical of the Earth Kingdom generals. Merely surrounding the enemy and hoping the Fire Nation would think better of attacking had not proven extremely effective so far, and Bumi longed for a more proactive approach. It was not that the southern coast had any particular resource the Earth Kingdom needed, but after the Fire Nation's victories on the northwest extremes of the continent, failure here would leave the Earth Army forces sandwiched between attacks from both directions, a nigh impossible situation. Further, (and this Bumi did _not_ bring up aloud), he worried for his friends at the South Pole and how well they could fare when cut off completely from Earth Kingdom trade. Finally, (and this Bumi did not even _think _too loudly), Kuzon had survived their last encounter and was leading his forces in the south's capture, and Bumi still felt he owed his friend a gruesome death. Of course, Bumi had tried to convince his superiors to behave a bit more aggressively time and time again, and as always had been dismissed as a petty troublemaker, so _proper_ strategy in the south was, like so much else, left to depend on Bumi alone.

He had risen to the challenge. His army, two hundred-fifty men strong, had been rapidly repurposed according to his needs. Less than half of it remained in the pass he was supposed to be guarding; the rest had been spread about the region to gather intelligence, protect the villages, and sow as much trouble for the Fire Nation as they could without getting caught. He'd come to enjoy the tactics he observed in the freedom fighter groups and had joined them in their constant hit and run military terrorism, and all over the region supply convoys were stolen, officers killed in their beds, siege weapons sabotaged, and all sorts of destructive mayhem unleashed on the invaders at every step.

In the end, however, Bumi was just one mad genius, and there was only so much he could do, so he played the game and answered the call when the King wanted to have strategy meetings out in the middle of nowhere. Bumi had known butting up against the ossified Omashu hierarchy was a waste of time, had known the inevitable outcome already, but some part of him always held onto the hope that they would listen to reason and act before it was too late. Deep within the layers of his angry, skeptical pragmatism, Bumi still remembered a time when he adored the king and his generals, and something in that kept him from merely doing what he wanted with the information he had and leaving them to perish. In some small way, he wanted to see the Earth Kingdom victorious as much as he wanted to see Bumi victorious, but every day the two seemed more and more incompatible.

It was a sad thing, Bumi thought, but in a certain sense, he spent more time fighting his own nation than he did the enemy. He had to take every advantage he could get, steal and lie and cheat to afford himself more options, withhold information that could save lives. Sometimes he felt guilty for his actions, but he knew he could not let that stop him. The needs of the many had to outweigh the needs of the few, no matter how unpleasant it might be. Guilt and loyalty had never stopped Bumi from doing what he had to do, and they would not do so today today.

The stone table shook and Bumi sat up in time to watch Shivi, with a few surgical earthbending moves, change the map. At his command, several of the stone columns that represented Earth Army units retreated into the washbasin sized walls of the miniature Ba Sing Se.

"The Earth King has withdrawn Ba Sing Se units four and eight," he said, a dour look on his face, "after their losses last month. That leaves Ba Sing Se with only six full units and eleven half units on the field and a very vulnerable southwestern flank." He paused and the table was silent. They had all heard of Ba Sing Se's recent failures, and though nobody wanted to admit it, it was clear the kingdom's capital was falling apart. It was a very dire threat and the real reason for the meeting (and presumably the only reason the King of Omashu had seen fit to travel so far from his throne to attend). "This," Shivi continued with a sigh, "means that Omashu, currently at nine full and twenty-four half, must increase its military presence at the Lakes to compensate."

"Preposterous!" one man shouted, and several were quick to interject their opinions, but all fell silent in an instant as the King began to speak. His face was solemn and he spoke slowly and quietly, forcing his audience to strain to hang upon his every word.

"It is… a burden to bear," he admitted, "Omashu has so many sons out to war already; we will be hard pressed to produce many more." The men around the table nodded deeply, as if the King had divulged some sage truth, but Bumi could only frown. "And yet," the king continued, "Omashu has always been the Earth King's most loyal province. The Royal City needs us now, and we will not fail them." All around the table, faces nodded their acquiescence. The King's word was law.

King Ouxi the Second had taken power a few years previous when his father, the very king on whose meetings Bumi had often eavesdropped as a young boy, had perished in a coughing fit. Compared to the late king, Ouxi II was less grotesquely fat and less grotesquely stupid, but Bumi considered him no less useless. He had made efforts to improve relations between Omashu and the kingdom's many villages, mostly by visiting them and proving that he was not, in fact, afraid to leave his well-defended throne, and Bumi was forced to applaud him for it, and yet when it came to actually deciding what was to be done, Ouxi II was just as hopelessly dependent as Ouxi I. A cadre of advisors still followed him everywhere he went, and if the letters Bumi had exchanged with Advisor Kee were any indication, Ouxi would not be amenable to Bumi's aggressive plans for the south. Bumi could not help but hate the foolish man who controlled his fate, draped in fineries and perched atop a massive stone throne while the men with actual military experience nodded dumbly at his every command like pigsheep.

"Very well, Your Majesty," Shivi agreed, clapping his hands together with finality, "but there is no way we can protect Ba Sing Se with the troops we have left inside of Omashu. We will have to withdraw forces from the bases here, in the south." Bumi could not help but grit his teeth. He didn't like where things were going. General Shivi, a short, powerful little man, was his direct superior, one of Omashu's own council of five generals, and had been his greatest detractor ever since he'd been given an army. Shivi had never hidden his belief that Bumi was unfit for command, and Bumi's frequent defiance of the General's orders had not improved their relationship over the years. Shivi had always been strictly by the books, the quintessential Earth Kingdom general, and while the unorthodox success that Bumi's creative tactics had achieved kept him out of trouble with the other generals, Bumi and Shivi only barely kept their mutual loathing within professional levels.

"That may be so, but we must not weaken our position here either," Maong said, his deep, sonorous voice commanding attention. "General Cilo's forces have been under near constant attack by Fire Nation guerillas; any retreat from his location will be a strong encouragement to their forces." There was a murmur of agreement. Bumi had always liked Maong, the oldest of the generals. His meter long, snow-white beard and the funny way his eyes twinkled amongst the wrinkles of his face reminded Bumi of the Guru. Maong was well respected and wise, and though he never rocked the proverbial boat as Bumi did, he had always been relatively open-minded and unaffected by the dogma that plagued so many of the Earth Kingdom's agents.

Shivi continued stalking around the table, his fingers steepled against his armored stomach as he talked.

"Of course you are correct, General Maong," he said, nodding. "We cannot allow the Fire Nation to mistake our movements for a retreat. Therefore, I propose that Generals Maong and Cilo remain to control the Fire Nation advance, while General Sures and Colonels Teng, Akur, and Bumi be recalled to take defensive positions at the Western Lakes." Bumi's eyes widened and he shot up from his seat.

"With all due respect, General, that is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time." There was a long moment of silence as all eyes fell on Bumi, who was standing with a dangerous expression on his face. "I refuse to be recalled." Shivi reddened with fury.

"You'll follow the orders you're _given, _Colonel!" he shouted.

"I refuse," Bumi repeated, crossing his arms petulantly. "It's stupid." Through the corner of his eye he saw the King staring at him with a bemused expression. Shivi looked up to the monarch for help but, getting none, returned to the attack, advancing around the table towards Bumi as he ranted.

"Why you disrespectful little whelp! You have been nothing but trouble in the south. It will be a damn load off my shoulders to see you and your band of no-discipline mercenaries back where you can't _hurt_ anybody!"

"That's enough, General Shivi!" It was Maong. "Colonel Bumi has performed beyond all expectations. His tactics are unconventional, but many of our forces owe their lives to information _he_ discovered and you are unwise to alienate him now. I would quite like to know why Bumi thinks your plan is the stupidest thing he's heard in a long time, wouldn't you?" Shivi looked dumbstruck for a moment and again looked to the King.

"Yes, let us hear it, Colonel Bumi," Ouxi said, his face genuinely interested. At this, Shivi had to swallow his anger and fake interest as well. Bumi nodded his thanks to Maong, whose lips curled in the smallest of smiles.

"Forget Ba Sing Se," Bumi said casually, tossing a conceited grin in Shivi's direction, then paused so the more conservative among his audience could gasp at his audacity. "They are clearly pulling out of the war. We are fighting to save the Earth Kingdom, not Ba Sing Se, and we cannot risk the war to save a city that does not want to be saved." There was a wave of disagreement and Bumi had to raise his voice to be heard. "They have failed us again and again! I cannot speak for all of you, but I'd much rather see Ba Sing Se fall than see Omashu _and_ Ba Sing Se do so!"

"The Royal City," Ouxi interjected, instantly silencing the noisy argument, "is Omashu's father and mother, benefactor and protector, brother and friend. We cannot fault them for what they cannot help."

"They have four times our population but contribute half as many soldiers. How is that something that they cannot help?" Bumi shouted, exasperated, before averting his eyes and appending a quiet 'Your Majesty'.

"We must assume they are doing what they can. Why would they do any less? This is their kingdom too, is it not?"

"Yes, but they're the only ones who have thousands of square miles of farmlands safely ensconced behind hundred-foot walls! They're leaving us to deal with this ourselves!"

"I grew up in Ba Sing Se," Shivi growled spitefully. "I, for one, will _not_ leave it to die, no matter what."

"We don't have to leave it to _die,_" Bumi said, regarding him. "It's got _thousands of square miles of farmlands safely ensconced behind hundred-foot walls!_ Even if the Fire Nation reached it today, how long would it take them to get through to the city itself? Two hundred days? Four hundred? Six? Meanwhile, we can be doing something actually useful!" The King leaned back in his throne and rested his chin atop one of his fists, a contemplative look on his face.

"Like what, Colonel?" Maong asked, again playing the role as Bumi's ally.

"Like cleaning up the Fire Nation in the south! Think about it. If we do not reclaim the southern coast, then the Fire Nation has a huge pool of resources and several avenues of attack from the south," he gestured to the corresponding region on the map, "on top of their formidable presence in the north. You see how hard the fighting is up there, do we really want that coming from _both_ directions? We need to press forward, take the initiative and _force_ the Fire Nation off of this half of the continent!"

"You want us to go on the offensive!?" Shivi asked, as if the notion was singularly repulsive. "We barely have the resources to hold our position as it is!" He turned to the King. "Your Majesty, do not listen to this man. He has been a reliable informant but a poor officer. He is reckless and dangerous and has no compunctions about taking enormous casualties."

"I have never lost a major battle, Your Majesty," Bumi stated proudly. Shivi rounded on him.

"You managed to lose the cavalry I loaned you! Forty men and their mounts you borrowed, for a milk run mission. How many did I get back? Nine. NINE, your Majesty! He managed to get thirty-one cavalrymen killed in a routine assignment! We cannot let him waste entire armies in the same way!" Bumi was quiet. Shivi was quite correct in that Bumi had only returned very few of the borrowed soldiers, but in fact he hadn't gotten _any_ of them killed, and the thirty-one missing riders had been running missions for Bumi's armies ever since he'd reported them dead.

"I already apologized for that!" Bumi roared. "It doesn't make me wrong now! Listen, we can push the Fire Nation away if we play our cards right. This base here," he pointed to the base he had destroyed in his earlier daydream, since restored, clinging to the coast of the map, "represents the largest Fire Nation threat in the area. "Between its harbor and Ojirun's, they've got fifty ships a day dumping their loads on our land. We _have_ to deal with them. Now, my scouts have reason to believe the main naval base is vulnerable; all it's armies have been dispatched. So, if we could just move forces from-"

"_What_ reason have your scouts to believe this? That base has been brimming with troops for years. The last time we attacked it, we lost four hundred men. Why do you think now will be any different?"

--

_one week earlier_…

The tiny outposts Bumi and his forces had set up all around the region were finding many, many uses. Mostly they served as rest stops where ostrich-horse riders could stop to change mounts or hideaways to avoid Fire Nation (and Earth Kingdom) detection. Today, however, a particular outpost, disguised as an abandoned stable and nestled just deep enough into the forest that it was out of earshot of any soldiers passing nearby, was finding a rather less pleasant use.

The Fire Nation soldier had been found, all alone, on the road between Ojirun and the main naval base. He had been separated from his unit and the horse-ostrich rider who'd discovered him had had little trouble in subduing him. He'd been thoroughly tied up and brought to the nearest outpost to await his fate. There he was a prisoner, but was fed and watered and mostly left alone. Three days he enjoyed the relative comfort before Bumi could arrive.

Bumi and Alam had arrived in the wee hours of the morning. They were exhausted from riding, but time was of the essence and they went right to work. The prisoner was roused from his slumber, candles were lit, and the interrogation began.

"No! No! NO! I… I ca-AAAANT!" the man's shouts and screams echoed through the forest, silencing its usual nighttime chorus of insects, and yet he remained surprisingly stubborn, even when the two Earth Army soldiers began breaking his fingers. If either of them had ever been able to feel any real pity for firebender prisoners, it had been burnt out of them three years ago during their brief capture by Kuzon's forces. Indeed, Bumi had selected Alam for the job precisely for this point; the bulky soldier had lost the sight in his right eye during his interrogation at the hands of Fire Nation soldiers and had worn a grisly black eyepatch ever since (a fact which made him immensely easier to distinguish from his brother). Accordingly, Alam was not known for being forgiving with Fire Nation prisoners and indeed was laying the intimidation on thick, talking to the captured soldier in measured, calm tones all the while snapping his fingers.

"I think you can," Bumi replied coolly, standing just far enough away so that the candlelight would flicker imposingly across his face. "I'm fairly certain your fingers aren't the only breakable part of your body. We've told you Alam here got his stylish eyepatch in an interrogation like this. Perhaps you'd like one to match?" The firebender certainly didn't _look_ like he did. "Oh, don't worry, I'm just kidding," Bumi consoled. "We're not like that in the Earth Kingdom." Bumi watched to see if the man looked at all relieved; he wasn't falling for it. "In the Earth Kingdom, we tend to interrogate under pain of broken bones." He lifted a brick-sized rock and juggled it tauntingly in one hand. "To be honest, I can understand why you fieries think it's brutal. Not nearly as painful as burning. More incapacitating, though." He paused, scratching his chin as if in deep thought, then suddenly brought the rock down upon the back of the firebender's hand. The man screamed again.

"So, let me ask again. Where is the Fire Army heading, eh?" The man whimpered, but was not forthcoming with anything useful. It was time to switch tactics. Bumi handed his wrist-smashing rock to Alam, then crouched down to look eye to eye with the prisoner.

"Listen, fellow. You gotto know we aren't about to kill you." The man looked skeptical. "It's true. I got a family, same as you," he lied, slipping into what he hoped was a suitably trustworthy blue-collar everyman dialect. "I gotto protect them, same as you. That don't mean I want your kids to lose their daddy. I understand where you're comin' from, so here's the deal. I can already tell your armies are getting ready to move. I can already tell they're heading for one of the major bases, Maong's, Cilo's, or Sures'. You don't gotto feel guilty for tellin' me that. You just tell me which one and I not only let you live, but I let you go free as soon as I can." He stepped backwards, standing again.

"Of course," he continued, "if you tell me the wrong one I'll find out about it pretty fast and I _will_ kill you." The three were still silent. After a few moments, he clapped the prisoner on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. "Well, I'll give you a few minutes to mull it over before I tell Alam to move onto your _other_ hand." He started to walk away, but before he'd taken three steps he was stopped by the wheezing sound of the prisoner's speech.

"Why?" he said. Bumi turned to face him.

"Well, because I'm such a nice guy." There was another long pause. Bumi looked at the bound man expectantly.

"Maong," he finally said. Bumi nodded and had the man's wounds tended. Within the hour, Bumi and Alam had moved on to begin laying their plans.

--

_"Why do you think now will be any different?"_ It would be different because the Fire Nation wouldn't _be_ at the base, at least not in force. They'd begun a northward march towards Maong's base yesterday; they'd arrive by tomorrow afternoon. This was the dangerous piece of information Bumi had been holding onto. This was why he _had_ to convince the generals to attack now, or be forced to accept Maong's life as a casualty.

"I've…" he answered after a moment, finding his mouth unusually dry, "My scouts have collected information that makes me think the base's armies are all on the field." He realized that had not really answered the question, but he did not want to reveal more than he had to.

"_What_ information? Have they seen the base? Where are the armies heading?" Shivi challenged, crossing his arms. Bumi licked his lips worriedly.

"They have not seen the base," the truth. "It is the flow of their supplies that makes me think they have departed," a half-truth. "I do not know where they are going," an outright lie. He could not tell the generals that Maong was the one about to come under attack. If he did (and they actually believed him), they would either retreat Maong or move to reinforce him. Either action would make it clear to the Fire Nation army that their movements had been predicted and they'd surely turn back to defend their vulnerable port, robbing Bumi of the valuable time he needed to destroy it. Shivi scoffed.

"We cannot risk serious resources because you think their supply flow is funny. This isn't merchant school, boy."

"It isn't idiot school either, idiot. We need to take every chance we can get. If we can destroy that port, the Fire Nation's presence in the south would be halved in no time! We _have_ to take the risk!" Bumi was getting flustered and angry. He could see he was losing.

"It is too risky. We must not." Bumi looked side to side, entreating the men at the table to agree with him with his eyes. He could not bear to look at Maong, the one man most likely to agree with him. The King, too, looked unconvinced.

"Let me, then! I volunteer my forces for a suicide mission!"

"No." It was the King who spoke now.

"But I've been nothing but trouble in the south! Me and my band of no-discipline mercenaries can't hurt anybody if we die defending our kingdom!" he tried. Shivi suddenly looked like he was seriously pondering Bumi's plan for the first time, but King Ouxi merely smiled shrewdly.

"Maong has faith in you." He gestured at the elderly general, who spoke up for the first time in some minutes.

"You are willing to sacrifice yourself and your troops on a hunch, Colonel?" he asked. "Surely you have more reason to think you are right." Bumi finally met Maong's gaze. The seconds seemed to slow down as if the Spirits had decided Bumi needed more time to experience the guilt of what he was about to do. He took a deep breath.

"No, General. There is nothing."

"Then I cannot let you sacrifice yourself in an attack my Generals consider hopeless," the King said in the regal, official voice that made it clear this was his final decision. Bumi felt his heart begin to descend into his stomach. "I forbid you from advancing. Maong and Cilo shall remain in the South. Sures, Teng, Akur, and _Bumi_ shall withdraw at once. They shall rendezvous with General Shivi at the north end of the Iodo Cleft in five days time."

There was a rousing chorus of assent from the men at the table, but by the time Shivi's cruel eyes had turned to look tauntingly at the defeated colonel, Bumi had already darted from the tent and was gone.

--

Bumi thundered across the desert atop his ostrich-horse. The big animal had been bred for long distance running and performed magnificently, taking immense strides with its muscular legs. The ride was jarring and Bumi had to hold on with all his might to avoid been dislodged by the bucking strength of his mount, but he was hell-bent on reaching his destination before it was too late. He kept his head down and his hands buried in the beast's hair-like feathers as the two hurtled southward.

--

By the time Bumi arrived at the stables-turned-military outpost where he'd left the Fire Nation prisoner, the sun had gone down and his mount was about ready to collapse from the exhaustion of carrying an armored soldier so far, so fast. Its tongue lolled about in its wide beak, its flanks were matted with sweat, and every step it took was slow and laborious. Bumi himself fared little better. His tailbone was bruised from the constant up and down motion and he'd managed to capture an absurd quantity of sand in his various bodily orifices. Still, time was of the essence and so, in the dark of the night, Bumi moved his equipment and the bound and gagged prisoner to a fresh ostrich-horse, hopped on, and continued his pell-mell journey towards the Fire Nation naval base.

--

Bumi could smell the shoreline before the morning was old enough for him to see – the ocean's briny scent mixed with the smell of seabird guano and coal. The crashing waves came next, finally managing to make themselves heard over the loud 'oof' the prisoner made each time the ostrich-horse's foot struck the ground just as the upturned bows of the Fire Nation battleships first crested over the horizon like a line of steely teeth. Last of all were the sights and sounds of battle, and Bumi thundered into the enemy base only minutes behind his troops.

--

A small unit of Earth Army troops were pinned down on the outskirts of the base. They'd caught their enemy completely by surprise and the line of guards, dockworkers, and off-duty soldiers they'd left dismembered in their wake was testament to their brutally advantageous position, but it did not take the Fire Nation long to orchestrate a defense. Alarm bells were ringing, the catapults that defended the harbor from naval assault were swiveling towards the heart of the base, ships were retreating to the safety of the water, and everywhere firebenders streamed out to defend against the unexpected assault.

Straight fights between firebenders and earthbenders were hard to call. The painful, vicious energy of the former tended to balance out against the unstoppable, bone-snapping inertia of the latter. In matters of trench warfare, however, the firebenders' speed gave them a distinct advantage, and even now a mere trio of men were halting the advance of fourteen Earth Army soldiers, using wide swathes of flame to force them behind cover, lest they meet a quick and fiery end. The earthbenders' options were few.

Except, of course, that the firebenders had not expected to suddenly find two thousand pounds of poultry and armor descending upon them at forty miles per hour. Bumi's mount crashed through the alley at full speed, sending the firebenders ducking for cover. Two of them were bisected in a flash with two broad strokes of Bumi's dadao. The blade-wielding colonel leapt from his saddle, rippling the ground as he landed. The third firebender could only watch as the Earth seemed to rise up to claim his ankles, and his momentary hesitation was enough time for an arrow to find its way into the soft spot between his helmet and shoulderguards. There was a chorus of cheers as the Earth Army soldiers emerged from behind trashcans, battleshields, and whatever cover they had found.

"Nice shot, Captain," Bumi said, sheathing his sword and clapping the dirt from his hands. Cahim appeared from a side alley, grinning dourly.

"Nice timing. Did you get us permission to be here?"

"Nope," Bumi replied, unconcerned, as he grabbed hold of his mount's reigns and began to remove the saddle and equipment. "Even better. Got us forbidden to advance at all, _and_ we're being recalled to cover Ba Sing Se." Cahim's face fell a little.

"Damnit," he mumbled under his breath. "That's _another_ twenty pieces I owe Shufu." Bumi laughed.

"I told you never to bet on the higher-ups doing anything right." Bumi dragged the bound prisoner off of the ostrich-horse's back, letting him to drop painfully to the ground. He tangled his fingers in the sweaty feathers of the beast's broad neck, stroking it slowly. "Get some water for this guy and then tell me how we're doing." One of soldiers grabbed a tarp that had been discarded nearby and filled it with water from his canteen. The ostrich-horse drank gratefully, noisily swallowing as much water as the soldiers could dispense.

"You were right," Cahim began his report. "They weren't ready for us. There's about half of a unit here-"

"Kuzon's?" Bumi demanded hopefully, stooping to adjust the ropes on the Fire Nation captive.

"I doubt it. They seem like fresh meat. Those three we just killed were the first firebenders we've seen. I bet we barely lose anybody at all."

"That's good. Hopefully Maong will be able to say the same thing at the end of the day. Unfortunately for him, he will _not_ be able to say he's crippled the largest Fire Nation port in the southern hemisphere. Something I _am_ planning to say." Cahim looked away, his face ashamed. Bumi frowned but said nothing.

Bumi hefted the prisoner up so he could meet his eyes. "You," he said, "are coming with me." The gag in the prisoner's mouth made it difficult to respond, but the look in his eyes conveyed a sort of confused, fearful acceptance, which was good enough for Bumi. Bumi's men watched incredulously as he threw the bound man over his shoulders and, with a length of rope, secured him to his shoulder-pads. With a little help, he managed to get the prisoner tied snugly against his back like a boarfer calf. He ignored the looks on his soldiers' faces as he gave his cargo a satisfied pat and unsheathed his sword.

"Let's go. I want this whole area burned to the ground. Not a man, catapult, ship, or box of food rations is to leave here intact. I want this base so thoroughly ruined that in a hundred years, people will look at the damage, shake their heads, and accuse our memories of overkill." The men laughed and charged.

--

Bumi's troops, having been recalled from their scouting missions all across the south and bolstered with the occasional troupe of open-minded freedom fighters, had surrounded the base, and all that remained was tightening the noose. Had Bumi's timing not been so appropriate, they would have been slaughtered, as even with their reinforcements they were less than three hundred men strong. As it was, however, the Fire Nation had practically emptied its armories for their massive northward attack, and, secure in the Earth Army's general unwillingness to move, had left very little behind as defense. Those skilled soldiers that remained fought valiantly, and the catapults that ringed the harbor sent fiery missiles raining down upon the invaders, but it was not enough. Bumi's troops surged forward with murderous ease.

Like Ojirun, this base had once been a small Earth Kingdom settlement, but had, in the years since the war's beginning, been overtaken by war. The port had tripled in size under Fire Nation direction, and by now there was very little remaining that could be considered a civilian target. Accordingly, Bumi's previous orders were followed without compunction, and his troops killed nearly everyone they saw. Earthbenders tore the foundations out from beneath buildings, torches were lit and tossed into supply caches (to augment the bending-borne fires already raging across the base), barrels of wine and water were split, and every item of value either found itself in the pockets of a greedy Earth Army soldier or found itself dashed to pieces against the ground.

Bumi himself led the charge towards the harbor's defenses. He swung his dadao with practiced ease, maintaining a powerful economy of motion that clove limbs and broke bones without pause. The soldier tied helplessly to his back accomplished exactly what he'd hoped; his foes were slow to react, confused as they were at seeing one of their own dangling from the back of the enemy commander like a piece of livestock on the way to slaughter.

Two men stood against Bumi now. Their flames licked across the Earth Kingdom ranks but abated as slabs of rock burst from the ground, breaking their shins. They fell. A rider atop a komodo-rhino discovered just how far Bumi could throw a two-handed sword when he found one thudding into his sternum and parts beyond. Bumi retrieved his weapon and pressed on, splitting from his soldiers to assault a lone catapult to one side. The crew started for him as soon as he was in range; one fell unconscious with Bumi's elbow in his face, a second was not so lucky. The third jabbed at Bumi with his halberd. Bumi ducked beneath it and wrested the weapon away with little difficulty. The man fell to the ground and attempted to scramble away, but found that the stones of the Earth seemed to grip him and hold him down. He screamed as Bumi knocked him out with the butt end of his own halberd. The fourth and final defender, still seated in the catapult and desperately trying to force the siege weapon to fire close enough to save him, was dispatched in an instant as a spire of rock jutted up through the catapult's base, skewering the entire machine and reducing it to timber (a fact which Bumi immediately regretted.)

Bumi moved on, working his way down to the shoreline to rejoin his soldiers, then leading a small group of them along the man-made jetty, capturing a bank of catapults, one by one. Bumi and his troops were well aware of their proper operation, having captured and studied them before, and before long the harbor's entire array of catapults was hurling pieces of stone and rubble out at the ships that had managed to escape to the ocean. The ships returned fire as they retreated, heading up the coast towards Ojirun. Several were sunk, including all of those unfortunate enough to still be in the harbor, as teams of earthbenders sent great fissures through the ocean floor. Great plates of stone breached from the shallow water like whales, turning the entire harbor into such a maze of deadly stone that not even a Water Tribe vessel would risk using it for a very long time.

It took six hours. Six hours to grind the base up and spit it out. The ships had all retreated well beyond the horizon, catapults were being destroyed, loot was being collected, and the slow trickle of soldiers returning to the base in hopes of averting disaster were finding just how fatally late they were. Bumi himself pushed the last working catapult into the sea, upending the end of the jetty on which it stood. It was here, amongst the columns of smoke and burning debris that had once been a heavily armed staging ground, that he finally removed the prisoner from his back. The ropes that bound him had cut deeply into his wrists and ankles and he looked dazed and embarrassed as Bumi cut the gag from his face.

"You know," Bumi said conversationally as he set to work releasing the man's bonds, "I don't think I ever caught your name." He finished his work and stepped back to stare haughtily down at the prisoner. The man's weary eyes flickered between Bumi's face and the jeering expressions on the men who'd gathered behind him to watch.

"A…Akuz," the man managed. Bumi dropped down to one knee and rested a friendly hand on Akuz' shoulder.

"Well Akuz, this is where you and I part ways." He gestured broadly to the smoking ruin behind them. "You've been a good passenger and I wish you well." With that he stood and began to walk away, leaving Akuz to gawk ineffectually in the wind and surf at the end of the jetty. His men followed suit and filed out ahead of him.

Bumi proceeded some thirty feet before turning and regarding the man with a smirk.

"My name is Bumi. Make sure they know it."

--

The Earth Army soldiers did not dally, or at least not very much. Bumi was feeling just pleased enough with himself that he allowed _some_ dallying time, for without it, how could they gloat whilst helping themselves to the rubble that was formerly an enemy stronghold? He and his captains had a brief meal in one of the few buildings still standing, helping themselves to the Fire Nation finery they'd found amongst the ruins of naval officer's suite. It far outdid the rations they were used to, and the taste seemed only enhanced after their thrilling victory. They'd flattened a high profile target with a low profile force, taken minimal losses, and once again gone against orders and been proven victorious. All around the table, men smiled broadly and were merry.

All except for Cahim. Seated to Bumi's right, the young man picked at his food with only a mild enjoyment. For a while Bumi was willing to let him mope if he wanted (Cahim's previous hero worship for Bumi had taken a definite downturn after he'd nearly died following Bumi's orders a few years back – Bumi had been particularly hard on the man ever since he'd noticed the change, though to be fair, he _had_ made Cahim one of his captains), but after a few minutes realized that Cahim's bad attitude was ruining his _own_ fun, which was entirely unacceptable. Before long, he felt compelled to say something.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked through a mouthful of some kind of crabmeat stew, "don't like spicy food?" Cahim managed a small smile.

"I don't know," he said, avoiding Bumi's gaze. "I know I should be proud, but it just feels… wrong, I guess."

"What, enjoying an enemy's luxuries on top of his remains? Can't fathom why," Bumi observed sarcastically. He took another indulgent bite of his biscuit for emphasis.

"No, it's Maong's men. It just feels like we should have been able to save them too." Bumi put down his food.

"We've been over this. You _know_ what would have happened had I told them the truth. They'd completely forget about this base in their rush to evacuate or reinforce Maong's, they'd –"

"No, no. I know. Just… It feels like a betrayal, that we only won because they lost." Bumi shrugged and started eating again, insistent upon making it clear he was enjoying his feast of gloating.

"Maybe we did." There was a long pause. The table, previously jovial, had fallen much quieter. After a time, Shufu, the twin with both of his eyes intact, spoke.

"How bad is it, Bumi? I mean, up at Maong's base." Bumi looked at him dourly.

"Pretty bad." He took a deep draft from his stein. "This base used to hold three or four full units. Presumably all of them are up at Maong's right now. They'll take his base, easy."

The meal was finished in silence, and only Bumi went back for seconds.

--

It was late afternoon. What few men Bumi had scouting the perimeters had reported that Fire Nation patrols were beginning to congregate to the east. They'd discovered the destruction of their base and would attempt to reclaim it soon. Bumi considered waiting for them so he could add their defeat to his list of victories for the day, but in the end decided not to risk any further fighting. He and his men grabbed what they could carry, destroyed what they could not, and soon were on their way north.

They left the base's remains behind and found themselves in the surrounding farmlands. What few Earth Kingdom peasants still lived in the area had taken a break from their miserable, toiling lives, emerged from their farmsteads, and come to stand at the roads and watch the army pass. They looked old, dirty, miserable, as if the thirteen years of war had been fifty. They did not raise any particular cry of jubilation as the soldiers plodded along, but merely followed their progress with vacant eyes. If any of them were surprised when Bumi, atop his newly rested ostrich-horse, gave the command to halt, they did not show it. His soldiers, however, were a different story.

"Burn them," Bumi said. His men looked at him with shocked expressions. Bumi waved a dismissive hand. "The _fields_, not the people. Honestly now." Some of the simpler of the men immediately reached for their torches, but brief looks at the others, who frowned up at Bumi as if trying to figure out if he were serious, stopped them in their tracks.

"Bumi…" Cahim started, clearly reluctant to once again get into an argument they'd already had, in some form or another, several times before. "They're not soldiers, they don't –"

"They're not soldiers but they _feed_ soldiers," he interrupted, turning away as if the matter were settled. "I _know_ it's not their fault, I _know_ they're the ones we're fighting for, but we cannot let them help our enemy." Cahim seemed about to start another train of argument, but each time he began he'd trail off and fall quiet again. "We won today, Cahim, but we lost a lot of good men in the process. Maong's men died to wipe this base off the map. Care to besmirch that sacrifice?" He looked slyly down at his captain. The defeated look on Cahim's face made his victory clear.

"Citizens of the Earth Kingdom!" he shouted in his most commanding voice, "your fields cannot be allowed to feed the Fire Nation's armies! My troops will produce ditches to protect your houses, but your harvests must burn. If you wish, we will escort you to the villages to the north. You will be safe there." He paused. Already the earthbenders were erecting barriers to the flame, even as the fields were set afire. Still the peasants' reactions were tepid and quiet.

"If not," Bumi said quietly, taking in the destruction he was causing. "Then I am sorry." He took a deep breath, steeling himself, forcing the heaviness he felt in his heart to back away, to retreat where it could not stop him from doing what he knew had to be done. "Come on," he grunted after a moment, "we have a rendezvous to make."

--

It was late at night on the fourth day after the battle that they reached the rendezvous point, nine hours late. It was raining hard, turning the road into churning mud beneath their feet, and the earthbenders in the group had to work their talents constantly to keep some of the larger equipment from becoming stuck. They were exhausted, both physically and mentally, having had to travel dozens of miles further than they would have had they remained at their assigned post. They slogged their way up the hill towards the small base camp that the other recalled armies had erected. The occasional crack of lightning illuminated the sky.

Just as they approached the base's edge, one such blast of light revealed a short, hooded figure awaiting them. Bumi felt his tongue seem to swell in his mouth. His hands felt sweaty. His heart began to pound. The man had to be the sender of the mysterious letters Bumi had received in years past! It was a leap of logic, Bumi admitted, but something about the way the man stood made it clear that he was waiting for Bumi. Bumi frowned and vowed not to disappoint him as he stopped his forces and drew his sword. He advanced up the last thirty feet of the hill alone, feeling the ground solidify beneath his every step.

"You, my friend," he said as he cleared the distance, "have a lot of explaining to do!"

"As do you!" The hood came down and the man's round, mustached face was revealed. It was Shivi.

"_Shivi?_" Bumi choked out in disbelief. "_You're _the one who's been sending me those –" he stopped, realizing how foolish what he'd nearly said sounded. Of course it wasn't Shivi.

"Never mind that," Shivi snapped. "You have violated a _direct order from the King_, have violated _everything_ that being a soldier in the Earth Army is all about! Because of _your_ actions, General Maong and most of his forces are _dead!_" Bumi frowned and crossed his arms.

"I think," he said, "that you have me confused with several hundred Fire Nation soldiers. Easy mistake to make, I guess."

"That man stood up for you!" Shivi sputtered, pointing accusingly at Bumi. Bumi could not deny the clenching in his guts that Shivi's words produced.

"Maong understood the value of good strategy. He would have gladly given his life to destroy the Fire Nation's largest base in the region, and that's what he did. He would have approved." Shivi was unreadable. "And I'm guessing," Bumi said, noticing the scroll of paper bunched in Shivi's hand, "that the King did too." Shivi looked ready to explode and gave Bumi a look of unrestrained loathing. He held it for some seconds, then lifted the scroll to his face.

"By royal order of King Ouxi II of Omashu, King of Omashu," he started, his teeth gritted together so hard he was nearly incomprehensible, "you are officially granted a position in the Omashu Council of Five. May you serve the Earth Kingdom with honor, General Bumi." He thrust the paper into Bumi's hands and stalked off, leaving Bumi to stare at it, shocked, in the rain.

Bumi could not help but grin.

--

A/N: The chapters keep on coming! He's an unstoppable juggernaut, I tell you!

Hmm… This chapter actually ended up reasonably short by accident. In truth, I hadn't included these events in my original story outline, but I feel they do Bumi's time in the military more justice than if I'd just promoted him to General in a single bound. Turned out a little bit boring, however, and for that I apologize.

On a lighter note, the next chapter is very nearly done, and should be up in a couple of days. It should be considered the last chapter in this second major arc (that of Bumi's initial experience in the military) and set the stage for another transition-y period followed by the inevitable (and obvious) third and final story arc.

Finally, I must again thank my beta, Rasputin Zero, for his contributions as editor and shepherd my sparse reader base over his way. Go read his stuff!

Next chapter: Bumi cracks some heads and plays some tricks, no matter what anybody else thinks.


	18. XVII: Bumi the General

**Episode XVII: Bumi the General**

82 years ago (Bumi age 31), summer.

--

After the Avatar (who was an obvious first), the ranks of the Fire Nation's Most Wanted list were filled by twelve men, all of them of the Earth Kingdom. There was the Earth King himself, of course, then the King of Omashu, followed by the ten powerful, earthbending generals that comprised the Ba Sing Se and Omashu Councils of Five. The elimination of any of these individuals would bring instant fame, glory, riches, and honor to any firebender skilled enough to pull it off. So much honor, in fact, that it would entirely counteract any dishonorable behavior that may have been involved in the elimination. Killing an opponent in his sleep was generally frowned upon in Fire Nation culture, but if said opponent could not be killed while awake, it was a reasonable alternative. If one could sneak into a target's bedchambers, slit their throat, and sneak out with their life intact, more power to them.

This was exactly Kukom and Azal's plan. It was a hot summer night and the humid air clung to their tight-fitting camouflage without relent. They had never assassinated anyone before, it was true, but both were well trained and devoted Fire Army soldiers and would rather die than fail in their task. Their steps were silent and their senses honed for the slightest disturbance as they made slow, cautious process through the Earth Kingdom camp's outer perimeter. One guard came close to seeing them and Kukom became sure he'd led himself and his best friend to their deaths, but the thunderous brute simply glanced stupidly in their direction, blind to their stealth. After a few tense moments, the guard turned away, oblivious, and the two ambitious infiltrators hurried their way to the General's tent. They were short of breath by the time they reached it, partly from exhaustion but mostly from the exhilaration of success, and they took several slow, deep breaths to steel themselves before, with a brief nod, slashing their way into the tent's backside.

Their target was General Bumi, the Mad Genius, the youngest and newest of the Omashu Council of Five. The man had proven to be an absolute menace to the Fire Nation's plans in the south. In recent years, his name had come up again and again, more often than not with some measure of fear, and for good reason. His tactics were vicious and unorthodox, completely unlike anything the Fire Nation's officers had been taught to expect in military school. Though the monetary bounty on General Bumi was considerably less than that on the older, more experienced Generals Shivi and Munsu, there was a growing camp of soldiers that had come to consider him only eclipsed by the Avatar himself in terms of danger to the Fire Nation.

To be captured by Bumi, it was said, was to never be seen again. To go against him in battle was to know what it was to be outmaneuvered. His plans were famously complex, his movements deceptively boastful and simple. As if to add insult to injury, the arrogant young general risked writing them all down and would wear the scrolls obviously on his belt, as if they were a holstered sword. Rumors abounded as to what secrets could be found in those scrolls.

It was with this in mind that Kukom and Azal entered Bumi's tent. They moved with utmost caution, creeping towards the bed and the sleeping figure thereon. Bumi's furnishings were sparse, a small wooden desk heaped with papers the only feature distinguishing them from those of his soldiers. His armor and a well-worn dadao rested in a disorderly heap in one corner, while a thin layer of letters and maps littered the floor, apparently swept off the desk in a fit of anger. Kukom's eyes widened when he recognized Bumi's famous battle plans, a tightly bound, meter-wide roll of paper, propped haphazardly against the desk as if they were any other document. He could not help but grin evilly at their luck. Bumi was smart, but no mad genius. They'd kill the man _and_ steal his ideas. Kukom gestured towards the scroll with his chin and watched Azal's delighted facial expression as he stooped to grab them. The two spent several seconds just _looking_ at the famed plans before Azal drew his sword, stuffed the scrolls into his scabbard, and grinned.

They would need the scrolls (the death of General Rehn a few years back had instigated a literal firestorm of argument over who deserved credit for the kill, but without a body or personal artifact of some kind as proof the bounty had gone unclaimed), but the man was the real prize. The two would-be assassins exchanged a significant glance and brandished their weapons. They crept towards Bumi's sleeping form.

Of course, had they been a bit more observant, Kukom and Azal might have wondered how they'd managed to sneak undetected into the tent of a general well known for his appreciation for proper intelligence. Further, they might have put more stock in the fact that one of Bumi's legs was dangling over the bed's side, its big toe just barely grazing the sandy floor. As it was, however, they took this merely as coincidence and would pay the price. Even as the two lifted their hands to strike, one of the general's eyes opened.

There was a shout and a flurry of movement and Azal was reeling, doubled over in pain and trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose with both hands. Kukom's knife ended up deeply embedded within Bumi's wooden bed-frame where only a moment previous the general's head had been. Kukom looked up from cursing his fate just in time to see the hilt of a since-retrieved dadao swinging towards his face. The sword's butt end slammed into his eye socket with an audible 'thunk'. Even as Kukom collapsed, his vision obscured by galaxies of swimming stars, he felt another blow to the back of his head. Through the agony and the haze, he could just make out Azal on the other side of the ruined bed, still clutching his face. Kukom felt terror and guilt well up within his chest - he could not let his friend pay the price for his foolish bravery.

"Azal! Run!" he managed to shout. Azal looked about ready to argue, but Bumi rounded on him and he made up his mind. He sprinted through the torn tent wall as fast as his legs could carry him, and in an instant he was gone. Kukom felt himself start to slip into unconsciousness, but could still feel a wave of relief as he saw Bumi apparently decide that chasing Azal was not worth his time. Bumi turned towards Kukom and the injured man felt hands on his shoulders lifting him to a standing position.

"Looks like your friend got away. You, however, are my new pet." Bumi's face, even through Kukom's blurry vision, looked decidedly self-satisfied and Kukom could not help but hate the man.

"And he's got your plans, Dirt-sucker!" he spat, not thinking Azal might fare better if Bumi did not have this information. Bumi put on a face of concern.

"Damn." He held a defeated posture for a mockingly short span of time, then perked up. "Oh well. Got you in trade, didn't I? I shall put you in the cage with the others who forgot what 'Mad Genius' means." Guards were summoned, and Kukom's last thought before the blissful quietude of unconsciousness took him was the decidedly uncomfortable feeling of having been played.

--

Of course, Kukom _had_ been played. Everything about the plan had been a set-up. _Had the foolish firebenders done their research_, Bumi mused contemptuously as he righted his desk chair and stooped to pick up the papers scattered across the floor, _they'd have known how little the Mad Genius managed to sleep during campaigns_. The past few years had been good to Bumi by anyone's standards – he'd succeeded nearly every step of the way – but his insomnia had only worsened, sometimes denying him any sleep for days on end. To be fair, though, it was not a fact he widely publicized, lest his opponents view it as a weakness, so perhaps his would-be killers could be excused for their ignorance. As it was, the two had played directly into his hands, so he supposed he should be grateful.

He'd been aware of the pair's movements for two days already, and had immediately seen the chance to perform his scroll trick again. He'd relaxed his guards and made sure to spend plenty of the night in bed and indeed, he'd played his part well. One of the killers was safely his prisoner while the other was rushing back to the Fire Army in possession of Bumi's detailed strategy scrolls. Of course, his detractors that claimed writing one's strategies down on paper was stupid and arrogant were absolutely right, and Bumi would never be so foolish. But writing down a set of elaborate battle plans - each with a glaring flaw known only to Bumi, safe in the knowledge that if they were ever used against him he could defeat them with ease - now _that_ was smart (how Bumi wished the aforementioned detractors knew the depth of his plans). Some years ago, he'd managed to 'forget' one set of scrolls in his mad dash to retreat from an impossible situation – the months following had held some of the Earth Kingdom's most spectacular victories to date. Hopefully the uncaptured assassin would make sure the new set reached the proper hands so the pattern could repeat.

Bumi stacked the retrieved papers back atop the desk and plopped tiredly in his chair. When he'd pitched them to the floor they'd become mixed up; he started to sort them back into the proper stacks, brushing the sand off of them as he went. There were maps, not only political and geographical but other types as well, lists of assets and people (it was rumored by some that at any given time Bumi knew the name, position, and relative skill of every soldier, allied and enemy, on the continent. Not true, but he _did_ have most of them written down), and dozens and dozens of letters. Most were from his scouts, warning him of enemy movements, economic developments, and the like, but these did not weigh on Bumi's mind. He came at last to the letter that had motivated him to scatter the papers away in the first place. His recent victory over the assassins had improved his mood, and Bumi felt a bit more ready to act rational the second time around.

He reached for the fresh head of lettuce he'd requested earlier, tore off a large leaf, and chewed it as he contemplated the letter. It had appeared on his desk unbidden a few hours previous.

_The prudent General would ignore the movements to the east. They are routine supply caravans and unworthy of a large-scale assault._

As with all the others, it was unsigned, but maddeningly familiar. Bumi knew he'd seen the handwriting before, probably back when he'd been a scribe, and had been entertaining plans of hunting down Antius and taking some of the archived letters from those years to see if he could find the perpetrator. He'd been far too busy, however (he'd not been to Omashu in three years) and thus was forced to investigate his secret observer through different means.

The letters, he'd discovered, arrived in a variety of ways. Sometimes civilians would have them waiting for him when he arrived at a village, other times he'd find them written on the back of some other missive delivered by messenger bird, still others, like the newest one, he'd feel certain had to be delivered by a human, but he'd been unable to catch anyone in the act. The letters always contained relevant advice for him (the most recent one was, apparently, aware that he'd spotted a series of caravans and had been contemplating what to do about them), specific enough that he suspected the sender to have a mole in his forces. They also, however, tended to have knowledge about Fire Nation movements that no one on the Earth Kingdom could possibly possess; a fact which gave Bumi's stalker a new, more insidious color: red.

Of course, Bumi rarely listened to the letters, and often, out of spite, did precisely the opposite of what they recommended. His stalker seemed to recognize this and the letters had grown more complex, clearly attempting to trick Bumi at times with reverse psychology. The game had grown very complex and frustrating, and where before Bumi could process a letter's advice and do the opposite in a matter of minutes, now he often spent hours contemplating who wanted him to do what, and why. Bumi grabbed another cabbage leaf and glared at the letter. A few minutes later, it still had not revealed its sender, and so, sighing, Bumi pushed back his chair and stood.

Luckily for Bumi's secret admirer (or perhaps unluckily, depending on whether they were trying to deceive him at the time), Bumi had no plans of sending a full-scale assault after the caravans. Whether they were mere supply patrols or not (and this Bumi refused to conclude based only on the cryptic letters), he had more pressing matters to attend to. He had a town to liberate.

Bumi grabbed the secret letter, tied it into the stack of others he had received, and tossed it unceremoniously back on his desk. He stretched widely, eliciting a satisfying series of vertebrae pops, and flopped down onto his bed to grapple with insomnia again.

--

Some hours later, Bumi awoke. It was late morning and the sun was already fast approaching its zenith in the sky (normally an unacceptably late start on the day), but as the particular plan Bumi had planned for his next target did not depend upon moving any earlier than his enemy, he let it pass without guilt. _After all_, he reasoned, _a man needs to sleep._

Donning his distinctive yellow vest (which had been patched and repaired so many times that it hardly qualified as yellow anymore), he grabbed the head of now-stale lettuce as he emerged from his quarters. His troops were already abuzz with activity, putting on their armor and disassembling tents with practiced efficiency. Bumi quickly found Duir overseeing the loading of a group of ostrich-horses, and wasted no time in approaching him.

"How are we doing, Captain?" he asked through a mouthful of his breakfast. Duir turned and grinned.

"We're on schedule, General."

"Any news on the assassin who escaped last night?"

"No sir. We have patrols searching for him, but he's _inexplicably_ managed to avoid them," Duir replied, a knowing glint in his eyes. It was important to put on a show of trying to reclaim the lost scrolls.

"Clever bastards, those firebenders." Duir laughed. "Plan going well?" Duir nodded and patted the rusty old halberd he was affixing to a tired old ostrich-horse's saddle confidently. "You're sure the fieries see us?" Duir nodded again. Bumi held out a hand, in which Duir immediately placed an eyeglass. Bumi trained it on the Fire Nation-held village on the other side of the valley. They'd set up camp obviously and made sure the Fire Nation could see their forces, and indeed, Bumi could just make out an uncommonly large group of firebenders guarding the nearest side of the village. As far as the Fire Nation could tell, the armies were equally matched. "Very good," Bumi concluded, handing the glass back to Duir. "I want you and Master Ful to have unit one on the hillside, ready to go in fifteen minutes. You know the drill."

"Yes sir."

--

True to his word, Captain Duir had Master Ful, Bumi's most skilled earthbender, and the entirety of unit one fully equipped and arranged on the most visible point in the valley within a quarter hour. Bumi, since fully armored, approached them, his face the severe expression that told his men he was fully in General Mode. Unit one ran the gamut of skill-levels, from grizzled veterans who'd been in the Earth Army for decades to the rawest of new recruits, and Bumi knew that it would take a lot of training before they could work together like he demanded. Luckily, however, today they were little more than an immense diversion. (They'd even borrowed dozens of ostrich-horses from local farms and stuck soldiers atop them who'd never ridden in their lives in order to enhance the army's apparent deadliness).

"I know this is the first mission some of you have had with me," he said, glaring judgingly at them as he patrolled in front of the first rank, "so let me explain my policies. Number one," he said, lifting a finger to the sky, "know the plan. We've been over the plan. Is there anyone here who does not, in fact, know the plan?" He let the shouted question hang for a moment, but there was no response. "Very good. Number two," he lifted a second finger, "follow the plan. I don't want any heroics, and _no improvisation._ You will be notified beforehand if a plan is open to improvisation. For today, it shall be a by-the-books, follow-the-orders kind of affair. Got it?" There was a chorus of 'sir, yes sir!'s. Bumi nodded with approval and his expression softened.

"Very good. Your job is to stand here and look menacing, so… practice looking menacing, or something. This guy's got it." He pointed at one soldier in the front row, who deflated a bit in embarrassment while the others laughed. Bumi smiled and turned to face the village that was their target.

"Master Ful," he addressed the man behind his right shoulder without turning, "if you please." There was a murmur of assent, followed by the sound of rending earth. With a few short, powerful thrusts, Ful drew a gigantic cylinder of stone, twenty feet tall and eight feet across, from the ground. It defied gravity for a moment, held up as if weightless by the earthbender, before slamming back down with a thunderous crash. The impact shook the planet, unleashing a signal only earthbenders could detect for many, many miles. Bumi'd come up with the idea for seismic communication a few years back and had been using it to coordinate his forces from a distance ever since. Ful let the cylinder fold back into the ground. Nobody moved.

After a few second pause, the earthbenders among them felt a pulse in response. Unit two was ready. Bumi cleared his throat and gestured towards the town.

"Shall we?"

--

There was much shouting and brandishing of spears as Bumi, Duir, Master Ful, and a half dozen other warriors and earthbenders specially chosen for their loyalty and swift reflexes marched unabashedly into the village. Predictably, they were stopped by the guards and immediately surrounded by a forest of spearpoints. Following Bumi's lead, the team lifted their hands in surrender. Several firebenders took up aggressive stances around them, and in seconds they were completely surrounded.

"Stop," Bumi commanded. "We come in peace." He addressed the soldier who was holding a spear to his face. "Where is your commanding officer?" The Fire Nation soldiers looked dubious, but after a few seconds of deliberation consented to escort the group into the center of town. Every step of the way, blades harried their progress, and the Earth Army soldiers moved with utmost caution.

The commanding officer in charge of the village's occupation, a short, nervous little man, met them in the middle of the street. The spearmen did not lower their weapons, but continued to eye the intruders suspiciously, ready to behead them in an instant should the need arise.

"Greetings!" Bumi said with inappropriate cheerfulness. "I was wondering if I could perhaps ask you a few questions." The firebender captain looked incredulous. He seemed to contemplate his options for a moment.

"No," he said, finally. Bumi frowned. His sharp eyes caught the interested faces of dozens of vagabonds piled up along the sides of the streets, roused from their miserable apathy to watch the confrontation.

"Oh, why not? I've approached you peaceably. Why can we not cooperate with one another?"

"I'm not an idiot," the man insisted, pointing an accusatory finger at Bumi's face. "You're General Bumi." He looked particularly proud of himself to have drawn the connection. Bumi opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted.

"Kill them." Chaos broke loose and Bumi could hear the fire erupt from the firebenders' fingers even as the earth buckled and shifted around them. Thick, triangular walls of rock sprouted from the ground in an instant, enclosing the team in an impenetrable armored pyramid and deflecting the fireblasts with ease. The Earth Army soldiers sat in the dark safety of their shell for several seconds, listening to flames lick around them, before the noise stopped and, with a gesture, Master Ful retracted the walls back into the ground.

"That was pointless," Bumi pointed out. The Fire Nation captain seemed to agree with him, but one of the braver soldiers suddenly lashed out with his spear. Duir caught the weapon in one hand and, with a swift kick, broke it in two. He hurled the pieces contemptuously at the soldier's feet. There was a long, awkward silence, not only among the standoff of soldiers, but among the dense audience of peasants that had emerged from their hiding places.

"I am indeed General Bumi, Captain, and I understand your reluctance to talk with me," Bumi said calmly, "but as you can see," he gestured behind him to the massiveness that was unit one, plainly visible on the hillside a few hundred meters away, "I have approached you with my pieces in plain sight. I am not trying to trick you, just to talk to you. I couldn't possibly retake the city with only the men I have here, so why would I come to you unprepared if I planned to defeat you? Besides, thanks to the swift talent of Master Ful here, even your entire garrison is unlikely to be able to kill us before we can escape safely, and if you force us to do so we'll merely come back with the army you see there. Do you really want that?" The captain, clearly weighing his options, shook his head almost imperceptibly. "So then let's just talk, shall we?" The man agreed.

"I," Bumi began, "am looking for Kuzon. He is your general, is he not?" The captain did not respond. Bumi scoffed. "Come now, Captain. The rules say you can give me your name, rank, and unit. You wouldn't be doing anything wrong. So… Kuzon? Yes? No? Maybe?" After a few seconds, the man nodded. The audience continued to grow. Dozens of dirty, cloaked peasants surfaced from all directions.

"Very good. And Kuzon, he can be found in the formerly-Earth Kingdom village of Auling, can he not?" Again the captain did not respond. Again Bumi scoffed. "They're just _rules_, Captain," he urged. "Who is to know if you were to confirm for me this little fact?" The captain was silent. His eyes flickered nervously from Bumi to the army behind Bumi's shoulder and back again. Bumi himself was surveying the crowd, waiting for the opportune moment. He maintained his calm and continued.

"Captain, what could I possibly do with this information?" he reasoned aloud, "General Kuzon is a respectable and powerful opponent. What, do you think if you tell me where he is I will immediately send everything I have to defeat him? It would be a pointless action, Captain. I am certain he could defeat such a haphazard attack." In a way, it was true. Kuzon's own rise to power had mirrored Bumi's, and his old friend was certainly the most dangerous foe Bumi had ever faced. In truth, however, he had every intent of attacking Kuzon with everything he had, if only he could prove that Kuzon himself was in Auling with the bulk of his forces. Ever since he'd sent undercover soldiers to Auling and never received word back, he'd been convinced he'd find Kuzon there. No response meant they were being watched too carefully to get word out, which meant they were actually going against a competent foe, which strongly suggested they were going against Kuzon. In truth, whether or not he got confirmation from the captain was fairly meaningless. He merely had to play his part long enough for his plan to work.

The captain shook his head, as if to clear a headache. Bumi looked at him expectantly. The crowd continued to grow; they were completely surrounded.

"No… No," the captain finally concluded, glaring defiantly at Bumi. "I will not tell you any more. I am not your prisoner, you are mine." The man radiated such a sense of pride that Bumi almost felt guilty for what he was about to do. Almost. Bumi sighed theatrically even as the spearmen around them closed in. Through the corner of his eye, he caught Master Ful's gaze. The two exchanged the briefest of nods.

Ful stomped on the ground, hard. The ground cracked around his feet and all around, the Fire Nation soldiers started in surprise. There was the sound of dozens and dozens of swords leaving hidden hilts as the crowd of peasant observers entered the game. The Fire Nation captain looked bewildered as, in a matter of moments, each and every soldier in his garrison found blades at his neck. He gazed around in shock for several seconds, noting only too late how unit two, disguised as a band of refugees, had surrounded his entire town. He looked back to Bumi, mouth agape. Bumi only shrugged.

"So," he said, "care to reconsider?"

--

The Fire Nation soldiers were dealt with in short order. All told, a full regiment of Kuzon's troops had been captured without a single casualty, and Bumi could not help but imagine the look on his former friend's face when he found out. The diversionary army that had held the garrison's attention was brought in and, once the prisoners had been properly restrained, all of the soldiers were offered some well-needed downtime.

The residents of the village, once they recovered from the shock of having an army materialize out of their own ranks, rolled out the proverbial welcome mat for the exhausted Earth Army soldiers. Their village had been occupied for some weeks without aid; to have it so suddenly freed was as much cause for celebration as any. The Fire Nation's store of food was broken into, and all along the village's main street firepits roasted up a victory feast for the triumphant men. Villager and soldier sang and drank and were happy, and Bumi could not help but appreciate the opportunity to actually _improve_ the peasantry's opinion of him, for once.

Though his forces were greeted with cheering and joviality, however, a quiet sort of respect followed Bumi wherever he went. He was not beloved. Appreciated, perhaps, but not beloved. In this regard, Bumi stood in stark contrast to the other generals in the Council of Five, each of which took enough care of their reputation that wherever they went there was music in the streets. They were heroes. Bumi, on the other hand, was a weapon, a label that suited him just fine.

Accordingly, Bumi did not join in the festivities, but instead set right to work seeing what he could find out about Fire Nation movements.

--

Bumi had been poring over a thick pile of letters in what was formerly the Fire Nation captain's office for two hours when Cahim first appeared. Bumi recognized the younger man's light footsteps.

"Congratulations, Captain," he said without looking up from his work. "You did things right."

"Thanks, Bumi."

"Tell me, how was life as a peasant?" Cahim and unit two had been undercover for almost two weeks. Cahim laughed.

"Food's terrible, but we got to sleep in a bit later than you tend to let us."

"Ahh… So it all evened out?" Bumi wadded up the letter he was reading and started on the next one. He felt Cahim walk up behind him to read over his shoulder.

"More or less." There was a long pause.

"Did you hear from the Auling group?"

"No…" Cahim replied, his surprise obvious, "Why? Haven't you?"

"No. They haven't reported in at all," Bumi said grimly.

"That's not good. Any idea why?"

"Kuzon, I'm hoping." Cahim sighed in barely-concealed exasperation.

"Any other news?" Bumi did not respond for some time. He scribbled fiercely on a spare piece of parchment, scrawling out a map of the surrounding areas. His frown deepened.

"Looks like the fieries are moving onto one of the two villages to the west. Not sure which." Cahim had no response. He had always been strongly affected by his earnest wish to protect civilians, and he was no less disturbed by the news than Bumi.

"I don't suppose it would do much good to tell you to come eat with us."

"No sir. I've got plans to make." Cahim said nothing and left Bumi to his work.

--

Bumi worked for hours without tiring, writing notes, sketching out troop movements, and weighing alternatives. He only rested once, and briefly, to request his documents be brought and enjoy a hasty meal of cold boarfer. His exhaustion staved off by the surge of adrenaline that intense planning always gave him, he nonetheless felt his frustration grow as the night crawled by. His pen strokes became more forceful (he broke three before midnight), and any errant mark proved sufficient reason for him to curse savagely and scatter his papers in anger or tear the offending document to pieces. Slowly, however, his plans began to coalesce, and the incomparable feeling of peace that came with solving a vexing mental problem flooded his senses.

Judging by the orders the captain had been receiving, the Fire Nation was planning on moving on the villages of Fo Li and Obuwai. Whether or not Kuzon would be with them was impossible to discern, but clearly a great host of his troops would enter the region by the following afternoon and assault one or both of the villages. Even moving full tilt, there was no way Bumi could organize a counterattack in time to stop them, but it occurred to him that, if one of the villages could be evacuated in time, the Fire Nation would move on the other, where they could be easily cornered in the aftermath of their assault. Some civilians would surely be killed, it was true, but if the bulk of Kuzon's troops could be defeated in battle it would be a huge boon for the entire region. It would be a worthy sacrifice. It was scant hours before sunrise when Bumi finally fell asleep, slumped over the desk.

Bumi awoke feeling refreshed and, rather than obtain breakfast, set right back to work. He would have to make his decision quickly and send word ahead to the village he planned to save. Bumi was studiously counting lines in a densely worded document when Cahim entered the room. Again Bumi did not bother to look at him.

"Got a plan?" Cahim asked. Bumi heard a 'thunk', which he quickly identified as the sound of a fresh head of lettuce being slammed down onto the room's bed stand.

"Yup," Bumi replied, satisfied. "It'll take some quick movements. Are your men ready for another battle?" He reached to grab the proffered vegetable and bit into it greedily.

"Yes, yes I think they will be." Bumi craned an eyebrow. Something in Cahim's voice sounded… off, as if he were lying, or at least decidedly uncomfortable. Bumi finally turned to regard him. The captain was nervously twiddling a piece of paper between his fingers, and seemed to shrink, ever so slightly, under Bumi's gaze. Cahim pointed at the papers Bumi had been reading. "What's that?" he asked, clearly hoping for a distraction. Bumi decided to play along.

"I'm counting people. Trying to decide which village to save."

"What!?" Cahim was immediately on the defensive, and Bumi rolled his eyes dramatically.

"The Fire Nation is bound to attack either Fo Li or Obuwai this afternoon. We evacuate one and catch them in the act at the other," he explained in the tone of voice he might use on a very small child.

"Why don't we just evacuate both of them?" Cahim demanded. Bumi sighed aloud.

"If we evacuate both of them, the Fire Nation assumes their movements compromised and turns back to locations unknown, reducing us from knowing where they are going to _not knowing where they are going._" There was a long, awkward pause. "Frankly," Bumi continued, "I'm leaning towards Fo Li. Technically Obuwai has eleven hundred eighty one people to Fo Li's nine hundred eight, or at least it did at the last royal census," he held up one of the papers he'd been studying, "but I am finding Fo Li's geography better suited for trapping the fieries." Cahim started to object, but Bumi interrupted. "Though considering their past, Obuwai has greater reason to hate the Fire Nation, so perhaps they'd whittle them down a bit before we got there."

"Bumi, you can't sacrifice people like this."

"Oh, I can. I'm the first one that'll admit the strategic value of having the populace's support, but–"

"It isn't about the strategy, you jerk!" Bumi turned to face the frantic young captain.

"It _is_ about strategy, Cahim," he insisted calmly. "We sacrifice eleven hundred eighty one people today, we save ten thousand tomorrow."

"You say that, but you don't know that! We aren't just fighting this war to win it! We're fighting so we'll have something left when it's over!"

"If we don't win it, we don't get to keep what's left. Kuzon is –"

"_It isn't about Kuzon either!_" Cahim interrupted, furious. "You're so damn obsessed with him you're willing to crush anything that stands between you! Ever think that maybe he doesn't _want_ to fight you?"

"Listen, Captain!" Bumi shouted, his outburst silencing Cahim in an instant. "You are a good officer and a good person, but I think you forget who you're talking to! _I_ am the one who makes the rules here, and if you don't like it, you can get out of my army. Whatever you may think of me, I don't like sacrificing people any more than you do."

"Sometimes I wonder," Cahim interrupted spitefully.

"Well _stop_ wondering. You think my actions don't keep me up at night? You think I _like_ crushing people? I don't. But I will do it anyway if I conclude it is the intelligent thing to do. Once again, it is, so do your damn job and do what I tell you to!" A silence descended upon them, only broken by the sounds of the soldiers outside. In truth, Bumi liked that so many of his officers were moral optimists. They reminded him of Aang, forced him to think about the human consequences of his plans. In the end, however, he could not and would not let them tempt him away from what he knew was right. He finally turned away from Cahim, who still had not spoken, and penned a quick note. He held it out to the fuming captain.

"Find a messenger bird for this. We evacuate Obuwai."

"No, we don't," Cahim spat. He pitched the letter he'd been holding onto the ground. "I wrote the king. We've been recalled."

--

_General Bumi,_

By royal order of King Ouxi II of Omashu, King of Omashu, your services in the south are to terminate immediately. Withdraw fully and return to Omashu immediately for reassignment. Defense of the Kabuai Front shall be transferred to General Shivi.

Bumi no longer had the letter with him (he'd slashed it apart with his dadao as soon as he finished reading it the first time), but his memory of it pranced mercilessly in his mind during the entire trip back to Omashu. Even having Cahim tied up and transported with the captured Fire Nation soldiers, slumped painfully atop an ostrich-horse, had done little to improve his mood.

His plans had been ruined. Though it had not been explicitly stated, knowing Shivi, the instant he'd been given control he must have evacuated _both_ of the villages and rushed to their aid, ignoring the encroaching firebenders. Bumi could not manage to banish the mental picture of an unrealistically plump Shivi sitting atop his mount, waving to a cheering peasantry with a smug look on his fat, stupid face. Shivi and the King had, once again, undermined his efforts and completely invalidated large portions of his reconnaissance. A full withdrawal from the region meant that all of the scouts and spies that might normally have salvaged the situation were useless, and when the Auling soldiers finally managed to return to base, they'd find the base inconveniently absent.

What was worse, Bumi couldn't do a thing about it. He'd very nearly lost his position in the Council of Five the last time he'd disobeyed the King. As always, he'd been right and had prevented a dangerous Fire Nation attack, but His Majesty Ouxi II had been furious, and had explained in no uncertain terms that, right or not, Bumi was in his employ and would only remain so as long as he did what he was told. To be fair, the King offered Bumi an uncommon degree of freedom (no doubt recognizing Bumi's value as an independent thinker), but in the last few years, Bumi had been very careful to follow royal commands to the letter (whatever he might do with demands from stalkers and the other generals).

It suffices to say that Bumi was in a very foul mood indeed as he and his troops made the long march back to Omashu. Even the familiar sights and smells of his homeland were of little consolation. His men, on the other hand, seemed to grow happier every day. For most of them it had been years since they'd seen friends and family, or enjoyed the comforts of an actual city, and there was much laughter and anticipation.

Bumi's anger tapered off a very little when the distinctive conical silhouette of Omashu itself finally appeared on the horizon, and, on the last night before they reached it, decided to release Cahim from his bonds. If the young man was at all thankful he didn't show it, and stayed pointedly on the other side of the army from Bumi all the next day.

--

They entered the stone gates around midday, and the soldiers dispersed every which way. Bumi immediately sent word to the King to demand an audience, then opted to visit his pets.

In his years since visiting Omashu, Bumi's memories of its layout had grown no less potent and he found that he could maneuver its streets with his eyes closed. All around, the familiar sun-baked hustle and bustle pulsed with life. As far as Bumi could tell, Omashu had been affected very little by nearly two decades of war. It was still poor and life was still hard, but compared to the towns he'd been fighting over for so long, the people were safe and secure. Bumi could not help but wonder if the Earth Kingdom's infamous fortress cities were at all a good thing. Surely they provided a powerful military advantage, but they deeply regimented Earth Kingdom society, separating regions from one another. Jealousy and anger ran deep between the many provinces, and the fact that some of these provinces were fortified and some were not did not help the rifts heal. If Ba Sing Se had not been so amazingly safe and self-sufficient, it would not have retreated so much from the war that it only bothered to field enough troops to secure its own walls, and people from Omashu and everywhere else in the world would have a stake in its survival. As it was, however, the war had shifted.

Nobody was home when Bumi hopped the fence of Shou's house and headed for Mipsie's barn. As soon as his feet struck the ground, however, three massive white heads peered out of the barn's depths. There was a moment's hesitation before Mipsie, Jipsie, and Bizzorzix exploded towards him, hooting and slobbering with unrestrained happiness. Jipsie tackled Bumi roughly to the ground, nearly crushing his ribcage in her enthusiasm. He laughed and patted her massive arm and withstood a very thorough tongue bath, only managing to extricate himself from beneath her weight after several minutes and some careful earthbending. The process was repeated with the other two apes, each of them taking their turn to dote on Bumi with their violent affection, and by the time the introductions had concluded, Bumi was feeling bruised and dizzy and worlds happier than he had been.

He played fetch with his pets for hours before a royal messenger arrived. The fastidious little man, dressed to the proverbial nines in a well-pressed green suit, stared contemptuously at Bumi, who was covered in a thick layer of dirt, slobber, and clumps of grass, but dutifully informed him that the King was expecting him.

--

Despite the fact that the King was 'expecting' him, Bumi still found time to wait outside the throne room for nearly an hour. There was nothing to be done, the guard at the door assured him, the King's previous meetings were running long, and you _know_ how busy he is. So Bumi sat down in the hallway and set to brushing the grime off of his clothes and hope futilely that Advisor Kee would happen by. Eventually, the massive iron doors parted and Bumi was allowed through.

--

If anything, Ouxi II's throne room was even more opulent than his father's had been. Though the late king had been entirely too fond of rich food, he'd never been particularly demanding about aesthetics. His son, on the other hand, was nothing if not vain. Elaborate gold and jade carvings had been added to the room's stone wall panels, the flooring had been redone in polished obsidian (covering over, Bumi noted with some disappointment, the secret tunnel he'd discovered as a child), and the throne, previously a fine but reasonably proportioned affair, had been replaced by a towering seat of ridiculous scale.

At present, His Royal Majesty sat atop his lofty, gold-plated perch and stared regally down at Bumi. He was bedecked in an opulent set of green robes, their hems sequined with rare stones, and the King's traditional green shoulder jerkin. A massive black amulet in the shape of a the Earth Kingdom insignia and bigger than a man's fist rested against his sternum, while a lofty golden crown rested elegantly atop his well-maintained countenance. The King raised a fastidiously trimmed eyebrow as Bumi approached, tracking mud across the previously spotless floor.

"I'm here," Bumi grunted, stopping in the center of the room and crossing his arms like a petulant child. The King's eyebrow cocked still further. There was a long, utterly silent pause as the two stared at one another, before Bumi's face fell and the famously proud general dropped to one knee.

"I am here, your Majesty," he tried again, his voice cracking. The King smiled.

"It is good. Rise, Bumi." Bumi rose. The King gestured to Bumi's dirt-encrusted clothes. "I did not realize you had not had time to clean up. I assure you, you shall have plenty of time to enjoy Omashu's comforts before your next assignment." Bumi grimaced.

"Thank you, your Majesty," he managed. The King smiled again. Bumi was learning.

"Servants," he said, waving a hand. Several green-clad young men and women materialized at his side. "Bring General Bumi a drink. He looks thirsty." They nodded wordlessly and disappeared again. Bumi's shoulders dipped a bit, but he knew better than to protest.

In minutes, a table had been brought out and covered in a resplendent feast in a very liberal interpretation of 'a drink'. A second, smaller throne was summoned, and the King deigned to descend from his pedestal to join Bumi at the magnificent table. As much as Bumi desired to skip past the normal pomp and puffery involved in dealing with the King and argue over his orders, he could not help but drool a little upon seeing the buffet of foodstuffs that had been placed before him. There was rice and coffee, potatoes, enormous loaves of fresh sweetbread, scallops and shrimp from the western coast, soft-boiled turken eggs, wine and milk and honey, a salad assembly as wide as a refuse bin lid, and, as a centerpiece, an entire roasted bison-boar. After months eating stale rations and whatever food could be obtained from the various poverty-stricken villages his army passed through, Bumi could not help but pile his plate high of everything within reach. The King ate sparingly, but grinned; satisfied to see Bumi eat so heavily of food so fine and expensive only kings could provide it. The two ate in silence for some minutes. Servants bustled about, wordlessly refilling goblets and the like.

The wonderful food made Bumi's anger evaporate, a fact he was sure was entirely intentional, and as much as he hated being manipulated he could not help but see the King in a slightly more pleasant light after stuffing his belly full of such finery.

"Are you enjoying your meal, General?" the King asked eventually, a conceited note in his deep politician's voice that made it clear it barely mattered if Bumi answered or not. Bumi nodded through a too-big mouthful of meat, swallowed with the help of a deep draught of milk, and cleared his throat.

"It is excellent, Your Majesty, but I cannot help but feel anxious to get down to business." The King nodded sagely.

"Very well. You want to know, I am sure, why I have recalled you?" Bumi nodded, reaching for another section of bison-boar brisket. "I am sure you would blame your captain, Cahim, but you must not. It is true he sent me a letter by messenger bird some days ago, telling me of what you had discovered of the Fire Nation's plans. He has often sent such information my way, however, and it did not affect my decision." Bumi's eyes narrowed in anger and he instantly regretted not torturing his traitorous captain even further. If the King noticed, however, he gave no indication.

"You see, Bumi, you have been a most excellent General, and I do not regret making you one. Your tactical abilities are undeniable, and I must admit it brings a smile to my face to imagine what the Fire Nation must think of you. I am very glad you are on our side." The King stared at Bumi, searching for a response, but Bumi remained stone-faced. "But," the King resumed after a moment, "I worry, at times, that you are not behaving with the best interests of the Crown in mind. I am not alone in these worries." The King raised an unnecessary hand to silence any protests. "It is a forgivable thing, my boy," he said patronizingly. "You are merely a general, your job is to worry about fighting. I, on the other hand, am King, and it is my job to worry about all things. I could not reasonably expect you to know what sort of damage to the Earth Kingdom's stability some of your more unorthodox plans may be." To hear someone so foolish as Ouxi II condescend to him about predicting consequences was nearly too much for Bumi, and he quickly hid his clenching fists beneath the table edge. He ground his teeth and stared at the King, willing his gaze to suggest what he was unable to say.

"At General Shivi's suggestion," the King continued, undeterred, "I have recalled you to assist General Cilo in the defense of the Trade Roads, where I believe your talents can be better applied. Shivi will take over your responsibilities in the south." The King finally stopped and stared pointedly at Bumi, as if daring him to disagree.

"You… You want me to come back because you're afraid I'm making you look bad?" Bumi asked slowly, incredulously.

"Not at all. I merely think you will be of more use closer to me."

"So you can watch me," Bumi challenged. The King did not respond. "You disrupted my operations, my very elaborate operations that took months to establish, because you're worried about your reputation?" The King's eyebrows furrowed. "…Your Majesty?" Bumi added angrily.

"You can reestablish your operations around the Trade Roads." Bumi eyed the pompous monarch suspiciously, searching his face for some sign of deception. The King was unreadable, but something still didn't add up. It was not unbelievable that his aggressive tactics could damage Ouxi's reputation as a kind and diplomatic ruler, but why now? He'd proven a damned useful asset to the Earth Kingdom over and over again. The Fire Nation's advance in the south had been halted and was in fact steadily being pushed back; Bumi was convinced they'd be completely dealt with within three years. Surely even Ouxi was not so concerned with his reputation as to give up such a thing so casually.

"You're not telling me something, Your Majesty," Bumi insisted. The King looked slightly surprised, but he said nothing. "I am your general, your _best _general. If there's a good reason for me to be pulled from my work, I think I should be informed."

"My reasons are none of your concern. Be thankful I offered you explanation at all." Bumi grimaced, then put on a more pleasant face.

"I mean, of course, only in the interest of the Crown. I am very good at reading situations and responding to them, Your Majesty. I think you should use my talents. Perhaps I can see a solution your advisors have missed, but only if you give me all of the details." The King rubbed his chin contemplatively as he considered Bumi's words. "Surely there is a military situation that makes my presence here, or at least my absence in the south, necessary," he pressed. "You must let me understand it. I can be useful to you, your Majesty." The King pondered for a moment.

"Very well," he said at last, and his politician's voice sounded more hesitant, more human, than Bumi had ever heard it. "General Shivi received word of Fire Nation General Kuzon's whereabouts and believed it better that he deal with it, given your past with Kuzon. I am inclined to agree with him."

"What? Where is he?" Bumi said, instantly on his feet.

"Kuzon was spotted leading his troops in the capture of Uijid Prison. He managed to release several high-profile prisoners, and is fortifying the position." Bumi's mind raced.

"I _have_ to go after him."

"I forbid it," The King responded simply.

"You don't understand, Your Majesty. I have been hunting Kuzon for _years_. I get a sighting, but by the time I send scouts to confirm, he's gone. He disappears, for weeks at a time. I can tell you where half his troops are at any time, but if you say he's there personally, I can finally get rid of him!"

"No. Shivi is in charge of responding to Kuzon's movements now, and he has decided Uijid is an acceptable loss. Unless Kuzon presses us further, we shall let him have it."

"Uijid isn't that far away, it's just to the east of here!" Bumi countered desperately. "I could collect my troops and be there in two nights!"

"You can, but you won't!" The King insisted, raising his voice. "Shivi will handle it."

"You know Shivi can't stop him! Shivi couldn't stop an infant!" Bumi yelled, all his worries about proper respect boiling away. "You went over my head!"

"I _am_ over your head!" The King's voice echoed through the throne room. "I _forbid_ you to pursue General Kuzon!"

"You can't just forbid me from doing the right thing! Kuzon is dangerous! If I can kill him, the Fire Nation's hold on the south will practically collapse overnight!"

"You know very well that isn't true."

"I know very well it _is_ true, and furthermore I know that it _will_ be true in three days time!" Bumi turned around and stormed towards the door. Guards stepped into his path, but he brushed them aside with ease.

"General Bumi, I forbid you to go any further! I forbid you to get yourself killed!" The King shouted from behind him. Bumi ignored him and kept walking. The King's voice rang out again. "If you should, by some miracle, come back through that door alive, it will not be as my general!" he warned. Bumi put a hand on the great, gilded door and turned to look at the furious monarch. A crazy thought touched at his mind.

"Fair enough," he said, and he was gone.

--

Bumi moved quickly. While he was confident his troops would follow his lead even if there was some doubt about whether or not Bumi was following the King's (he could hardly be said to have befriended his men, but few could see Bumi operate without gaining a certain level of trust in his judgement), if the King decided to move against him to detain him further, he might not escape in time. The King, he hoped, would let him do what he wanted, safe in the assumption that he'd cool off before he got all the way to Kuzon's position. Regardless, it did not do to be careless.

Bumi summoned his troops, ordering them to leave the city and congregate at Kawo point, some miles away, as soon as possible. There was much disappointed mumbling from those that Bumi told personally, but in the end they reluctantly obeyed, gathering their armor and trudging back out of Omashu's mighty gates after only hours of rest. Captains were sent to scour the city and spread the command.

Bumi himself remained in the city, confident he could smuggle himself out easier than he could a full army. He holed up in one of the tiny officers' rooms in the barracks to plan. His heart thudded furiously in his chest as he struggled to come up with a decent ruse quickly enough. He _had_ to move out before midnight, but Kuzon was no fool; he couldn't possibly assault him without a good bit of subterfuge. Bumi's anger and the pressure of the situation made it hard to think, however, and it took more than an hour before his mind alighted on a trick involving torches. He penned a quick list of the necessary supplies and nearly bumped into Cahim and Shou as he opened his door to hand it off.

He stared at the pair for a moment. They looked worried. With a grunt and a gesture of his whiskered chin, Bumi waved them inside. He left the barracks and handed the list and a fistful of money to the most reliable-looking street urchin he could find (he could not trust the usual army requisition process, not with the King breathing down his proverbial back), promising the boy a sizable bonus if he could get what he needed to his assembling army before the night was through. The boy nodded and scurried off to meet Bumi's demands. Bumi returned to his room.

Shou was sitting on the bed, a tired look on his face. As Bumi entered, Cahim, who had apparently been sifting through the papers on Bumi's desk (no doubt looking to discover Bumi's plans), jumped and instantly resumed a posture of innocence. Bumi frowned and shut the door him.

"What do you want?"

"We want to know what you're doing," Shou insisted. He looked older than Bumi had ever seen him. "Moving out so quickly. Where are you attacking?" Bumi sighed and turned towards his desk.

"Uijid. Kuzon's there." He didn't need to turn around to see the significant gaze Cahim and Shou gave one another. "King says I can't go, so I have to go fast."

"If the King says you can't go, you –" Shou began.

"If the King orders me to leap into the Chasm, I wouldn't do that either," Bumi said, cutting him off. He quieted, insisting on considering the matter solved, but a few seconds later, the need to prove himself _right_ overtook him. "Look," he commanded, grabbing a map from the desk and shoving it towards Shou's face. "I thought Kuzon was in Auling. I had a few dozen men undercover in the area, disguised as refugees." Shou's expression turned to one of comprehension almost immediately. "I was right. Kuzon would have had to move his forces through Auling to get to Uijid, and he would have had to do it weeks ago. My men in Auling haven't gotten word back to me, but if Kuzon had passed by _weeks_ ago, they'd have had plenty of time to do so." Bumi sighed. "He has them, the bastard," he concluded. He felt anger at Kuzon, at the King, at his mysterious stalker, and at himself pulse through his skull. The caravans he'd seen might well have been _prison_ caravans, which meant his stalker had been deliberately trying to keep him from discovering what had happened to his men (or, he supposed, trying to goad him into rescuing them).

"Bumi, you can't go after him. We don't have enough troops," Cahim protested.

"I am working on that. A few torches will even things up," Bumi insisted, then rubbed his chin in mock thought. "Besides, if I recall correctly, _Private_, you're not a captain anymore, so I'm not sure why you feel it's your place to even mention matters of strategy to me."

"Because I'm your _friend_, Bumi. I think you're making a mistake!"

"Why is it that every decision I make you feel the need to question?" Bumi demanded, rounding on Cahim. "Have I not proven my talents?"

"It isn't about your talents, Bumi," Shou interjected from his seat on the bed. "Nor has it ever been. Neither of us doubts your ability. We just don't want to see you kill yourself for no reason."

"No reason? Kuzon's captured some of my men! He's captured a fortified Earth Kingdom position that threatens Omashu's very safety! I'm supposed to do nothing?"

"You're lying to yourself. You've had men captured before, and you know very well that the Fire Nation does not kill its prisoners. They will be fine until a prisoner trade can be negotiated. You do not need to risk a full assault to rescue them. So why are you?" Bumi growled. He knew exactly what response Shou wanted him to give, knew that his guardian was right.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied, "Kuzon is a threat. My job is to destroy threats. I'm going to destroy him."

"You know that's not why."

"It _is_ why," Bumi insisted, clenching his fists.

"You want Kuzon dead for personal reasons," Shou responded simply. The accusation hung in the air for some seconds. None of them moved.

"No I don't," Bumi finally whispered, more to himself than anyone. "But I am going to kill him anyway."

"You're going to get _yourself_ killed," Cahim warned.

"And you two!" Bumi suddenly shouted, causing his visitors to jump, "are letting that get in the way!" He waved a blameful finger at the pair. "So what if I die? I will have given my life doing the right thing! It is not your place to get in my way because _you're my fwiend_!" Bumi flicked his gaze frantically between Shou's face and Cahim's, feeling more and more cornered. They stared at him with pitying expressions. Shou stood with some effort and approached. Bumi turned away from him.

"Bumi…" Shou said, as if he were trying to calm a wounded animal. Bumi felt Shou's hand on his shoulder. He bore it for a fraction of a second, then snapped.

"Don't touch me!" he roared, spinning around angrily. His arm thudded into the side of Shou's head and the older man collapsed like a broken tent, crashing to the floor with a thud. Bumi stared, shocked, at what he'd done. For a moment he was tempted to stoop and help Shou stand, but his face quickly twisted back into a frown.

"Thank you both," he breathed deeply, "for your support." He turned and stormed out of the room.

--

The trip to Uijid was not a pleasant one. It was not a particularly long or difficult walk, the terrain was smooth, the weather was balmy and calm, and yet Bumi's head seemed to weigh more and more with each step. He distracted himself as best he could with logistics, putting finishing touches on his battle plan as he walked.

Uijid had been built at the end of the same mountain range that sheltered Omashu's northern side as something of a miniature fortress. It was primarily a prison for captured Fire Nation soldiers, but had evolved in its purpose to act as a valuable rest stop for troops moving between Ba Sing Se's southern front and Omashu. It was a formidable defensive position, and any army powerful enough to capture it had to be quite expertly wielded indeed. Unfortunately, by the time Bumi's army could move into position, Kuzon would have held it for several days, giving him ample time to reinforce it and prepare for a counterattack. Fire Nation defenses were notoriously flimsy, but Fire Nation troops inside of _Earth Kingdom_ defenses was a different matter altogether. Furthermore, Cahim had been right. Bumi's army was only about eight hundred men and tired, under normal conditions probably not a match for whatever Kuzon had used to capture Uijid in the first place.

Bumi believed he'd worked out a solution to the discrepancy, however. The boy he'd paid had indeed acquired everything for which Bumi had asked, two thousand torches and as many wooden dowels as could be found, and had it delivered to the army in a pair of ostrich-horse-drawn carts well in time for their departure. As they walked, Bumi had his soldiers assemble the torches and tie them wherever they could. Torches were tied to the ends of halberds, to supply carts, to the pommels of saddles, and even affixed to the top of the earthbender's wide, shield-like helmets. It made the army look quite silly indeed, but if Bumi was right it would play into a significant advantage for their side.

On the second day, Bumi split his forces up. Lighter units were sent covertly ahead, giving Uijid a wide berth, while the bulk of the troops stopped to rest. Bumi, having not slept at all in two days, tried desperately to get some rest of his own, but every time he closed his eyes, violent, angry thoughts kept his heart racing and his mind too alert to make any real progress. He distracted himself instead by sharpening his dadao, even long after its edge could split a blade of grass with ease.

As darkness claimed the land, plunging the second day into the second night, the signal was given. Master Ful shook the land mightily, and the troops Bumi had spread about the region simultaneously lit their torches and made for their target. In the dead of night, the extra torches made their forces gleam spectacularly, as if they possessed numbers three times what they did. They came at Uijid from all directions.

The night was long and progress was necessarily slow. Bumi's troops only very slowly advanced, giving the Fire Nation plenty of time to despair at their apparent might and adjust their strategy accordingly. It was psychological warfare, one of Bumi's favorite kinds, and he only wished he could see the firebenders' smug faces as they prepared for an assault much bigger and wider than the one that was actually coming. Hopefully, they would waste time, effort, and resources on unnecessary provisions, exhausting their forces out enough to negate their superior numbers. Even better, they might choose to make a move before Bumi's forces could close, spreading their numbers thin.

--

It was less than an hour before sunrise, judging by the chorus of insects Bumi could hear buzzing about in the grass surrounding their feet. Torches roared and armored boots stamped the ground, but the men were silent, their dour faces stretched and distorted by the flickering glow of the fire. Bumi avoided looking at them as he walked – their mood only seemed to further depress his – and instead kept his eyes fixed on the starry sky. He peered through the smoke and counted stars, his mind instantly recalling the constellations by name, followed by those that he'd invented as a child when the traditional ones proved too unimaginative (no sky could be complete, he'd claimed, without Magistrate Dogo Swa Swa Xe Xo Semestro the Earthbending Iguanamundi). The simple, categorical thinking brought some relief to his troubled mind and he increased the level of detail, struggling now to remember the many legends associated with each celestial character. He remembered Sozin's Comet (this he made quick effort to forget again), he remembered how a raving, telescope-wielding lunatic had been exiled from Omashu after claiming that the stars were burning balls of space-gas, he remembered navigating across the southern landmass with his adopted family of tribesmen.

A sudden clatter roused Bumi from his mental journey. A soldier walking nearby, a boy of perhaps twenty, had tripped and fallen face-first in the mud, extinguishing all four of his torches and sending his sword and shield flying. Bumi's brows furrowed a bit in frustration and he stooped to help the young soldier, grabbing him by the armpit and yanking him back to his feet.

"S-Sorry, General," the boy said, his eyes wide and terrified. Bumi ignored him and earthbended the majority of the mud from his armor.

"Be careful," Bumi grunted, re-lighting the boy's torches with one of his own.

"Yes sir, thank you sir." Bumi yanked the fallen shield from the mud and handed it over. The boy retrieved his sword and they were moving again as if nothing had happened. Bumi watched the young soldier through the corner of his eye as they walked. He did not appear injured, nor even particularly tired, and yet there was a timidity in his movements that Bumi did not like, as if the boy had no idea where he wanted to go. Bumi bore it in silence for a few moments.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked eventually, his voice shattering the atmosphere. The boy goggled at him again, clearly fearful he had done something wrong. Bumi shook his head and gestured vaguely in the boy's direction. "This," he said as if by explanation, "are you having trouble walking?" The boy's face returned to sullenness and he turned away to keep walking.

"No sir," he said. "I just get the feeling I'm not going to be walking away from this one." Bumi nodded as realization dawned. He had never bothered to consider when he might die. It seemed to him something of a matter of choice; he would die when he felt like it. But it did make sense that some other people might not be so confident.

"We all die someday. You worried no one will remember you?" Bumi asked, genuinely interested. The boy shrugged.

"Not really."

"Worried you're dying for no reason?" Bumi pressed further, the tiniest bit hesitant as to what the answer might be.

"Not at all. I just… Want to go on living for a while." It was a simple-minded sentiment, and yet something in the boy's voice made it seem like a pearl of great wisdom.

"Ah…" Bumi said at last, and the two spoke no more.

A few minutes later, the ground shook. Bumi felt the signal spread through his bones. It meant that one of the decoy units had been attacked, which meant that the Fire Nation had decided to take the offensive, make a preemptive strike in the hopes of avoiding an impossible last stand. Bumi forced a grin; his plan was working. He presumed Kuzon would send a great host of forces to pierce through Bumi's imaginary ranks, then double around back and cut off the invaders' escape route, trapping them between _two_ heavily armed Fire Nation forces. All Bumi had to do was begin the actual assault before the Fire Nation realized that their preparations were for nothing and that they'd split their defenders in half.

As planned, the troops quickened their pace. As his legs pumped with effort and painful thoughts returned to his mind, Bumi looked to the stars again. This time, the sky seemed only black and empty, and offered no relief.

--

The sun had just peeked over the baked desert lands to the east when the battle began. Uijid's great pillar-like shadow bathed the invading earthbenders in darkness. It jutted imposingly from the rocky ridges that sheltered it, and Bumi could not help but think that while it lacked the spiky fierceness typical of Fire Nation architecture, its sheer _presence_ cast an unusual note of fear in his mind, as if even the Spirits would find themselves ill-put to budge the great monolith an inch. Of course, he was well aware that such a claim was nonsense; firebenders had successfully captured it without the ability to rip stone walls apart like week-old bread – what was to stop earthbenders from doing so?

Accordingly, the defensive ring of sandbags and timber that the Fire Nation had installed since their invasion fell with ease, exploding outwards as the ground bucked violently beneath it. The first wave of Earth Army troops crashed on the base like a rockslide, meeting the Fire Nation defenders without fear. As Bumi had planned, the Fire Nation armies had been prepared for them, but had suffered under the impression that the fight would be coming from all sides. Even now red-clad troops were rushing to the western side of the base, abandoning the hard-earned defenses on the other sides. Furthermore, some portion of the Fire Nation army had already left the fortress in a misguided attempt to forestall the perceived invasion; hopefully they'd stay away until the Earth Army could deal with the defenders. Arrows, fire, and stone rained down from all directions.

Bumi slammed into his foes with a brutal energy borne of years of frustration and feelings of betrayal. He fought automatically, efficiently, instinctively, alternately lashing out with his wickedly sharpened dadao and upended sprays of sand and rock. Images of Kuzon flitted in his mind's eye, lending strength to his limbs. In his hands, his blade was a deadly ribbon of movement, its forward-heavy balance lending it incredible chopping power. It sheared limbs and heads with equal ease, sweeping side to side in methodical arcs. Bumi dove through streams of fire without fear, infusing his every footstep with enough strength to split the ground. All around, the battlefield shook as earthbenders unleashed their legendary might.

It took only minutes for the Earth Army to tear through the prison's outer defenses and reach the stony imperviousness of its walled courtyard. The Fire Nation's resistance swelled, however, as they realized their mistaken preparations and rushed to meet the new face of the threat. Bumi strained his ears to hear Kuzon's voice in the fray, and several times thought he could hear his former friend's orders emerge, but each time they were drowned out by the furious symphony of battle song and he could hold none as confirmation of the man's presence.

Bumi placed a hand against the prison's outer wall and turned. The land around him had been trampled into oblivion. Bodies of the fallen and the splintered remains of the Fire Nation defenses festooned the ground, and individual skirmishes all around were abandoned underneath the ever-increasing hail of arrows from above. The Earth Army soldiers scrambled to the relative safety of the walls, where earthbenders tore great indentations to act as cover.

"Advance!" Bumi shouted, waving his sword in the air. "Over or through!" He could see one of the side groups he'd split from the main army arrive and was encouraged. They had to move quickly, before the Fire Nation reinforcements could arrive. He turned back to the wall and, with a savage punch, sent bricks showering in all directions. A few further blows proved sufficient to collapse a several foot wide opening, and he led a stream of soldiers in with a shout.

Behind the wall the Fire Nation defenders were denser, and Bumi found himself instantly in a furious melee. He lashed out with all four limbs and what earthbending he could, breaking limbs, shattering weapons in mid-strike with quick sweeps of his dadao, and otherwise smashing his way through the enemy ranks in any way he could. Fire licked against his armor and burned at his skin but aside from sending a violent plume of sand at his own body to extinguish the flames, he ignored the pain. The smell of ash and blood filled his nostrils.

He was knocked off of his feet. Bumi responded quickly, turning it to his advantage in an instant by putting his weight into his descent. He struck the ground shoulder-first; shaking it so hard several nearby soldiers lost their footing and joined him. With a quick gesture of Bumi's elbow, a plate of rock pushed from the ground, launching him back upwards like a springboard. He hurriedly dispatched the nearby foes before they could rise. He had no time to catch his breath as a jet of flame very nearly set his hair aflame – he drew his sword back out of his fallen foe with a grisly 'pop' and met the firebender head on.

Eleven enemies later, the fighting continued unabated. Bumi could hear the sounds of men meeting their deaths all around him; he took a moment to hope his troops were up to the challenge. As soon as his current opponent presented his neck for chopping, Bumi gladly obliged then, ducking under an errant sweep of a halberd, vaulted himself atop the nearest section of wall to survey the situation.

It was not good. The battlefield was a sea of red, speckled only sparsely with green and bronze. His troops pressed onwards, but their progress was slow and costly. Worse yet, Bumi could just see a regiment of Fire Nation troops rushing back to the fortress as fast as they could; if they arrived before Uijid could be taken, the battle would be lost. Bumi's mind reeled, seeking desperately for some trick, some clever, Mad Genius way to salvage the situation, but none was immediately forthcoming. He stubbornly persisted, leaping to another nearby island of untoppled wall to get a better look, insistent upon ignoring the reality his eyes were presenting him.

"Form!" he shouted. At his command, the green-clad soldiers began to coalesce, tightening their formation. That would afford them some safety, at least, and, Bumi found himself admitting, the possibility of a retreat if things got much worse.

The stone beneath Bumi's feet exploded from beneath him as a gigantic iron axe slammed into it with monumental force. Bumi rolled easily and was on his feet in an instant, in time to watch the axe's thrower drag himself up the wall's side on the heavy length of chain that attached the weapon to his wrist. The man was enormous and knotted with grotesque muscle, the largest firebender Bumi had ever seen. He was bald except for a single braided tail of hair that hung down to his waist and ended in a rough-hewn iron ball. Similar weights dangled from dozens of metal links on the man's belt and swung freely as he, with an ugly roar, charged Bumi.

Bumi was, for one of the very few moments in his life, completely at a loss as what to do. He'd never shied away from fighting alongside his troops, but never before had he encountered such an eccentric foe, so clearly hell-bent on facing him personally. The man advanced on Bumi with a vicious grin, swinging his axe about on its chain like a flail. He released it, sending it hurtling across the broken battlement, and only a last-minute drop to his stomach saved Bumi from a very messy death. Bumi rolled to the side in time to avoid the man's booted feet as he charged past like a wounded rhino.

He frowned as he leapt to his feet again. This was a waste of time. The battletank of a man wheeled around and charged again, winding the axe back into his massive hands. This time, Bumi met him full force, ducking under a ponderous sweep and bringing the blade of his dadao into the man's armored stomach. The blade pierced deeply and stuck fast, and Bumi was forced to release its handle to duck under the swift jab of an elbow meant for the side of his skull. He popped back up and grabbed his sword with both hands, gave it a mighty yank, and tore it from the giant's torso. A stream of crimson blood gushed onto the polished stone floor of the battlement, but the injury barely slowed the man's assault at all. Stars blossomed in front of Bumi's vision as the man's fist connected with his temple. He fell painfully against the floor and tumbled over the wall's edge, where he landed in the dirt with a noisy 'thud'.

Bumi ignored the pain building in his skull and rolled again, narrowly missing a stream of fire that issued from his unsightly foe's tree-trunk like arm. The axe was thrown again and missed, embedding itself deep in the ground. Bumi rose to his feet, leaning against the rocky wall for purchase, in time to watch the man leap down to press the attack again. He lifted his dadao to parry the first blow, the impact of which rattled his body so hard Bumi felt sure he'd liquefied his innards. He leapt over another blow coming from one side, rolled, and parried a third. Each strike hammered against his body. His ears rang.

He swung the dadao up in a quick arc, intending to strike the man in the throat, but the man was deceptively fast and leaned out of the way. He swung his axe in a neat circle, catching Bumi's sword in mid swing. The two weapons held fast and both combatants leaned in, pushing to overpower the other. Bumi was an uncommonly strong and well-practiced fighter, but he was no match for the sheer physical might of his opponent, who gave a sudden push, snapping Bumi's dadao off a few inches above the hilt. Bumi twisted as he fell and sprung to one side just as the axe came down to finish him off. He tossed what remained of his sword viciously to the ground. His skull pounded with anger.

"Enough!" Bumi shouted, managing to make the axe-wielding brute jump in surprise. After a few seconds of stupid indecision the man grinned, encouraged, and advanced. Bumi's fist slammed into the ground so hard that bricks shook loose from the nearby battlements. He grabbed onto the Earth with all the strength he could muster, and with a mighty pull, Bumi yanked up a several-hundred pound slab of rock. An axe crashed into it, crumbling it in half, and Bumi wasted no time in tossing the rocky remains right into his charging foe. The boulders smacked against the man. He let out a howl of pain and stumbled, and for a moment looked ready to fall, but quickly regained his angry vitality and, with a roar, wheeled on Bumi again.

Bumi backed up, straining to summon what rock he could. Head-sized boulders hopped into his hands, and these he threw at his foe, who parried them with little effort. He tried desperately to grab a larger stone, something that could crush the axe-wielding nightmare all at once, but each time he managed he would lose control and it would fall apart. He found no time to curse his poor earthbending, busy as he was in preserving his life. The man thundered after him without mercy. Bumi continued to scramble backwards, leading the man in laps around the section of wall upon which they had fought earlier. A plan formed in his mind.

The man growled and spat with rage, becoming more and more frustrated as Bumi continued to evade his wrath, so he was entirely unprepared to see the pesky little earthbender suddenly break the pattern and dive towards him, slamming into the wall with his shoulder. There was the groaning sound of many tons of stone buckling under its own weight, and the great axe-wielding warrior turned around just soon enough to watch the wall thunder down upon him, crushing him like an insect.

Bumi spat on the great pile of debris that remained when the dust had cleared.

"You stupid bastard," he chided the dead man spitefully. He was about to continue when he was interrupted by a sudden, three-note melody in the air and a shooting pain.

He stared in disbelief from the three arrows extruding from the left side of his collarbone to the painted Yu Yan archers, high atop Uijid's central tower, who'd fired them. The shocked look clung to his face even as he toppled backwards and everything went black.

--

A/N: And here we have it, the promised next chapter, end to the second arc, and, as a special treat, the longest installment yet! Let the hall of eternity cut loose a thunderous blast!

Gotto tell you, I was _sorely_ tempted to add the word Lobster into this one. Fans of GanXingba's hilarious videos will know where. As it was, though, I decided that this story's previous use of 'lambsters' and the fact that Bumi hasn't yet really acquired his goofiness made the reference a bit too striking for inclusion.

Anyway, next chapter will come when it comes. Not sure if I'm quite motivated enough to write it right now. It's a big one, with several important plot points and revelations.

Finally, I must once again thank my beta Rasputin Zero for his insights as beta-er and editor.

Next chapter: Bumi loses something near and dear to his heart. Also, who knew floral enthusiasts could be so useful?


	19. XVIII: Bumi versus the Order

Episode XII: Bumi, Fishcaller

**Episode XVIII: Bumi versus the Order**

82 years ago (Bumi age 31), late summer.

--

For all the vividness of his thoughts during the day, Bumi's dreams were surprisingly subdued. He'd heard before the idea that it was during sleep that one was the most directly connected to the Spirit World. It was no coincidence that, in the stories, the next step in the Avatar's journey would always come to him in a dream. Of course, Bumi had never put much credence in this theory, though he admitted that it fitted – even if the spirits _did_ exist, they obviously didn't bother to connect much with _him_. It was more likely, he'd always thought, that it was precisely because he thought so much during the day (or when lying in bed fighting insomnia) that he simply had nothing left for unconsciousness. This was fine with him, since as hero or weapon he couldn't recall ever drawing a useful conclusion from any dream whatsoever.

Still, on rare occasions, Bumi would dream and he'd remember. He often regretted it, for his dreams were usually filled with stress, with painful inconsistencies and guilt and all manner of negative feelings. He was disturbed that this was so, that when his brain was left to wander on its own it would invariably turn to punishing itself. It made for a disquieting conclusion about what kind of person he was beneath his uncommonly robust mind, and Bumi avoided thinking about it.

Were he in a stabler frame of mind Bumi might have wondered if the fact that he'd been felled during the height of the day, while his mind buzzed with activity, had anything to do with the powerful images that congealed out of the blackness afterwards. As it was he had other things to worry about.

--

Bumi awoke suddenly. His mind was numb, still echoing the unrealistically deep, harrowing voices that permeated his dreams. His skull pounded, and even flickering his eyes beneath their lids sent jolts of pain lancing across his skin.

Still, Bumi was nothing if not willful. Even inhibited, the same unconquerable rationality that had saved him from hypothermia twelve years prior fought its way to the surface and forced him to see reason. It was difficult, as the venom of his dreams still left a bitter taste in his mouth, but bit-by-bit the facts fell into place. He had fallen in battle. He was still alive, so he was probably in enemy hands. He didn't know where he was, how long he'd been unconscious, or, most importantly, who might be watching him right now. He had to be cautious, had to find a way to escape. He kept still as he listened, reaching out to learn as much as he could before anyone realized he was awake. His left eye creaked open a degree or so.

"I know you're awake," a voice informed him. Bumi did not answer but opened his eye a little further. It was a young woman, her back to him as she rummaged through the shelves of a little wooden cabinet. "So you can stop pretending." Having found the item she sought (a salve of some kind, apparently) she turned to face him. She was pretty, in a homey sort of way, possessing the sort of good-natured looks Bumi would never expect on a Fire Nation woman, which were (stereotypically, anyway) generally more in the 'exotic beauty' category. The silence dragged on for several seconds before Bumi mentally slapped himself for having been so distracted by something so trivial.

"How?" he croaked.

"You stopped talking to yourself." She shrugged, a dry 'that's too bad' smirk on her face. Bumi licked his parched lips and slumped a little deeper into the dingy little bed on which he had been placed. It was hot, and sweat clung uncomfortably to his skin. His vision swirled – the effort of speaking that one word had taken everything out of him. He closed his eyes tightly, willing the dizziness away, but opened them again as he felt a soft touch on his forehead.

"Good thing, too," the girl's voice continued, "because it's time to change your bandages again and I'm tired of having to sit you up by myself." Her voice was stern, but tinged with a hint of amusement that suggested she was trying to be funny. Bumi didn't laugh.

"Here," she said, perhaps a little more tenderly, and he felt her hand at the back of his neck. She pulled gently and eased him into a sitting position. He grunted as he felt a white-hot knife of pain stab his left shoulder. The world swam.

Bumi rested his bulk against her as she set to work. She moved swiftly, cutting away the sodden mass of linen wrapped around his shoulder. Out of a sort of morbid curiosity, Bumi sneaked a glance at the great spongy mass of purple and black where the arrows had hit him. It was healing, but it didn't look very encouraging. The girl dabbed at the wound with a damp cloth and Bumi winced, grinding his teeth together and maintaining just enough pride to catch the piteous yelp before it worked its way out of his throat.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," the girl chided and Bumi grimaced again. The cleaning done, she set to applying the new bandage, hiding the wound beneath a snug tangle of white with practiced efficiency. Bumi wracked his mind for a witty retort, but she cut him off, pushing him back down onto his bed. Against his better judgment, Bumi was asleep within seconds.

--

In his dreams, Bumi revisited events of his past. Terrible colors assaulted his senses. He was back in the shadow of Uijid Tower, his body cracked and broken and buried beneath heaps of his own dead men. Their faces leered at him from behind bloodied helmets. Their breath stank of piss and cowardice. Bumi struggled to escape, but their weight pressed down hard upon his shoulder and the more he struggled, the more the pile of corpses seemed to multiply until he was plunged into darkness.

--

Bumi awoke with a start, his body twisting into a sitting position. A wave of pain struck and he fell back, his breath catching painfully in his throat. His raking coughs filled the room. Bumi clenched his eyes tightly and lay for some seconds, catching his breath, as the swirling pain receded. He groaned in despair. Why the dreams? He almost _never_ dreamed. Why now, when he was in so much pain already?

Bumi swallowed several times to relieve his dry mouth and realized, now that his dream was trickling away, that the pain was actually much reduced. The pounding in his head, which had hounded him unabated when he'd last awoken, was just a shadow, and he found he could unclench his eyes and even turn his head without much pain or dizziness. That was good, that was a good thing, he reminded himself. He was recovering already. He had to keep his head on straight, had to move on. What sort of general is put off by childish nightmares, after all? He had bigger things to deal with.

With a grunt of exertion, Bumi managed to heft himself back up into a sitting position. This time he braced for the pain in his shoulder, and it passed by relatively easily. He allowed himself a grin at this small victory and slowly opened his eyes. He blinked furiously, wiping the crud from his eyeballs, and surveyed his surroundings.

He was in a small room, dark except for a small band of light that stabbed down from a single, high window. The floors and walls were made of wood, closer in character to a tiny log cabin than the steel or stone he'd expect of a prison cell. The girl from earlier was working quietly at a nearby desk beneath a huge, heavily marked map of the world. Behind her were crates and crates of supplies, packed so high that Bumi couldn't help being reminded of the ware-caverns in Omashu. Muffled voices came from behind a heavy oaken door.

Bumi glanced down at his body. Aside from the unsightly bulge of bandages, their cleanliness since darkened by blood and pus, he looked more or less like he usually did, with scratches and burns and all manner of small injury, but nothing major. He flexed each of his limbs experimentally and discovered that, however little his current lodgings looked like a prison, his right hand was, in fact, firmly manacled to the wall. He gave the metal links a few halfhearted tugs but, of course, they held fast. Bumi sighed. Oh well, at least he was alive.

He looked back to the girl. Her clothes had changed since he last saw her – he must have been asleep for at least a day. The girl did not appear to have noticed him and continued to write. Bumi frowned as he remembered her caustic bedside manner, not to mention the fact that she'd apparently chained him to the wall.

"Hey!" he shouted. She did not respond other than by rolling her eyes. He tried again, louder. "Hey, nurse-lady! Whatever your name is! You with the hair!" She slammed down her pen in irritation.

"What?" she snapped. Bumi raised his brows.

"Sheesh… Hair's a touchy subject, I guess." He wished he could hold his hands out defensively, but with his right arm manacled and his left arm too injured to reach his face, he had to do without.

"What do you want?" she hissed, a dark expression on her face.

"I wanted to know where my yellow vest is. I'm ready to leave." He gestured to his unclothed torso. The girl almost laughed, but Bumi's face remained dead serious.

"I threw it away," she admitted. Bumi felt as if he'd been punched.

"You _what!?_" he demanded. What had begun as something of a joke had quickly become a nightmare.

"_I… threw… it… away_," she said again, more forcibly. Each word felt like another arrow into Bumi's shoulder. "It was in terrible shape."

"It was fine!" Bumi protested, his voice cracking. "I demand you get it back!" The girl rolled her eyes again.

"Oh please. That thing was more patch than vest." She was right – Bumi had had his shirt damaged and repaired more times than he could count, and after the first few times it'd happened when there were no helpful village women around, he had taken it upon himself to learn to sew himself, and had carried a needle and thread ever since. "Besides, it had arrow holes in it. And blood."

"Arrow holes and blood add character!" Bumi whined. The girl shrugged, and Bumi knew the fight was lost. His vest was gone. Defeated, hHe slumped down and mourned. His vest had been dear to him – it was surprising, really, how naked he felt without it. Bumi had worn that same shirt nearly every day since his fateful meeting with Kuzon. Mostly he just wanted to be wearing it when the day he defeated and destroyed his former friend finally came. He wanted Kuzon to see it in his final moments and regret ever betraying the Mad Genius, but the attachment had grown to be so much more than that, and Bumi only realized now that it was gone how much he depended upon it to identify himself.

"Do you know how long I've worn that shirt?" he growled. The girl sighed in exasperation.

"I'll make a guess. How about… Ten years?" There was a long, awkward pause as Bumi counted.

"Yeah, roughly…" Now Bumi sighed. "I want it back."

"Too bad. It's long gone," the girl responded, almost tauntingly. There was another pause.

"Where's my sword?" Bumi demanded and cast a murderous stare her way. The implied threat managed to catch her off balance and she blanched as she considered just what he might plan to do with a blade. She looked at him, a new modicum of fear in her eyes. He grinned evilly. He knew his sword was gone too (the sound it had made as it snapped would forever be ingrained into his memory), but it was good to know she could be intimidated, if only a little. She was a smart girl.

Her hesitation didn't last long. "How about," she offered, changing the subject, "instead of a sword, you work with something a little easier, like food? You haven't eaten in days." Bumi grunted in agreement. In fact, he realized, he was rather famished. The girl descended into the depths of the room to rummage through the supply boxes and returned with a neatly wrapped loaf of bread and a piece of red-skinned cheese. She handed the foodstuffs to Bumi, who wasted no time in tearing them open and wolfing down their contents.

"It's all we have," the girl warned as she returned to her desk. In truth, the food tasted positively _heavenly_ to Bumi, though the bread _was_ a bit stale.

"Got any lettuce?" he asked, grinning through a mouthful of food. The girl glowered at him.

"I _just said_ it was all we have." Bumi shrugged and swallowed. He ate in silence for a time.

"Can't complain," he admitted after a few minutes. "_Last_ time I was a prisoner, I didn't get fed at all."

"You're not a prisoner now." Bumi took another bite and stared incredulously at the girl. He lifted his right hand and jingled the heavy metal chains thereon.

"Then what the hell is this?" The girl looked ready to answer until a new voice cut her off.

"We can't have you running off just yet, Bumi." Bumi shifted his gaze to stare contemptuously at the man now standing in the doorway. His gravelly voice held a certain smugness that suggested he greatly enjoyed the idea of having one of the Earth Kingdom's generals in chains. Even so, it was not the man's infuriatingly self-satisfied grin that caught Bumi's eye, but his clothing. Most of it was humble enough, a simple gray tunic and pants, but overtop rested the unmistakable pauldrons, belt, and boots of a fellow Council of Five general. Or a former one, anyway.

"Sounds like a prisoner to me," Bumi grunted, choosing not to comment on the man's unexpected attire. The man did not respond right away, but rather marched purposefully to join the girl at the desk. The two of them conversed for a few moments, talking in hushed tones while gesturing at the girl's work. Bumi strained his ears as much as he could without looking like he was doing so, but all he managed to determine was that they were discussing a travel route. They seemed to come to a conclusion and, nodding approvingly, the big man returned his attention to Bumi. He strode up to Bumi's bedside, his hands clasped and his cloak billowing impressively behind him.

"As Onbri said, you're no prisoner," he insisted politely. "But we have taken a substantial risk in rescuing you, and for the time being we cannot allow you to risk our operations any further. Please understand." Bumi let his eyes linger on the man's pauldrons for a moment, then met his eyes.

"I gotto admit, _General_, there are a few things here I don't understand." The man forced a smile.

"In good time, Bumi, in good time. For now you are still some weeks away from fighting form, and so you must remain in bed." He gestured to the shackle around Bumi's wrist.

"Not likely," Bumi growled. "You're going to tell me what the hell is going on, and then you're going to let me go." The man frowned.

"No, I'm not."

"You are a subject of the Earth Kingdom," Bumi insisted, his anger rising, "holding an officer of the Earth Army against his will is treason against the throne!" The man laughed, his gravelly voice filling the room with sarcastic mirth.

"Oh, very good, Bumi," he said, nodding emphatically. "As if you've ever hesitated in the least to commit treason." Bumi fumed silently. "Besides," the man continued, "as you will soon find out, you are no longer an officer of the Earth Army." Bumi raised his eyebrows and was about to ask what exactly _that_ meant when the man cut him off with a curt gesture. "I am sorry, Bumi, but I simply don't have the time to waste on you right now. I will return later, and we will discuss your situation." With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

"Bastard," Bumi grunted under his breath as the man disappeared. He looked briefly at Onbri, who pointedly avoided his gaze. With a final, frustrated sigh, Bumi slumped back down to think.

--

Bumi spent the day contemplating his options. Onbri remained studiously at work at her desk the entire time, and as harmless as she looked (and no matter how much they claimed otherwise), she _was_ a jailor, and Bumi knew could not make a move with her watching. Instead he watched and planned, blowing the dust off of his ancient eavesdropping skills. He sat quietly, scanning every detail of the room, looking for tools that might help him. Though he couldn't be sure without trying it, it looked as though he could just reach the nearby medical cabinet if he got out of bed, and perhaps even Onbri's desk.

He spent time studying the map on the wall. It was too far away for him to make out many of the hundreds of penned observations, but if he squinted at it long enough he could read a little. Dozens of elegant black arrows swept across the continent, and Bumi got the distinct impression he was looking at the plans for an operation of some size. If he followed the arrows backwards, he found that nearly all of them originated from four or five sites. Omashu and Ba Sing Se, one of the larger villages up north, and one of the sandbender villages were all easily enough identified, but the last, nestled amongst the same mountain range that protected Omashu's north side, he'd never seen before. A quick glance at the window revealed nothing but a sliver of blue sky, but Bumi nonetheless felt sure he was, in fact, being imprisoned in the mystery home base. It _was_ the closest to Uijid, after all.

Bumi watched Onbri as well – not directly, but typically out of the corner of his eyes. She was an enemy and it would not do not to understand her, so Bumi kept her under close scrutiny, in one way or another, all day. He timed the rare instances when she left the room and tried to figure out a rough pattern in her behavior, carefully observing the way she wrote and every move she made. Where did she keep extra ink, were her current bottle to spill? Was she a threat in any physical sense? Anything could be valuable, and Bumi sat and compiled for hours until, finally, an hour or so after he'd finished a meager dinner, she picked up her work and departed without a word.

Bumi was still for a long while after he heard the click of the door behind her. Voices came again from the next room. Onbri and at least two others talked for a few minutes, exchanging pleasantries from the sound of it, then everything fell silent.

"Finally," Bumi sighed to himself. He sat up, leaning on the wall with his good arm to steady himself. He gritted his teeth for several minutes, willing the bloated feeling in his head away. He just needed a moment, he told himself, and then he'd get to work. Once he finally felt intact enough to do so, however, he found out how little work he could do. He occupied himself for a minute or two by pushing his bedsheets aside, grasping their edge with his chained hand and sliding his legs out from under them, but when even this accomplishment managed to wind him, he was forced to abandon this avenue. He cursed his weakness as he panted, taking quick, shallow breaths to avoid aggravating his wound.

He turned his focus on his shackle and gave it a strong tug, but it held fast. Growling, he pulled a bit harder, with all the might he could muster, but again the chain remained unbroken. He summoned forth a wellspring of cuss words to keep himself company as he struggled, but even the foulest language he could dredge from his memory (a Water Tribe insult involving oxibou, actually) failed to phase the iron's iron hold on his wrist. With a final, furious pull, Bumi gave in, letting his arm dangle from the chain. What was wrong with him? He was a big guy, he should be able to break chains, right?

He stopped himself. He was wasting time. He would be lucky to break the chains at the peak of health – he certainly couldn't expect to do so now. Further, there were at least two people waiting for him in the next room, one of whom might or might not be the former general, and the Earth Kingdom didn't choose its generals lightly. What did he expect to do when he escaped? No, no. He needed a key, and he needed a plan. He had to wait and think and gather intelligence and strength.

This conclusion brought little relief, but Bumi forced himself to accept it. He would just have to bear the indignity for now, to wait for the opportune moment. _Neutral jing_, he reminded himself, _Neutral jing._ _The mark of a strategic mind. The time would come._ When it did, the earth would shake with his vengeance.

--

It was night, judging by the room's sole window, when the man finally returned. Bumi ignored him as he lit a few candles, filling the room with a weak glow, and continued to ignore him as he began to rummage through the supply crates. After a few minutes the man seemed to find what he was looking for and approached Bumi's bed, a large, flat box in hand.

Bumi watched silently as the man dragged a table and chair to his bedside, sat down, and opened the box to reveal a well-worn Pai Sho board. He wordlessly set the board down between them and began to arrange the pieces.

"Do you play, Bumi?" he asked as he rifled through the cream-colored discs in his hand. Bumi shrugged.

"Not in some years, but I know the rules, yes." The man smiled.

"Good. I've become quite the Pai Sho fan in my old age and was hoping you might prove a worthy opponent." He held out a handful of red pieces, which Bumi paused to stare at before begrudgingly accepting. "It's a wonderful game," the man continued, "filled with strategy and intrigue. The perfect game for men of our shared background." He twirled one piece impressively through his fingers. "You may have the first move."

"Gee, thanks," Bumi drawled as he slid his first piece into place. The man clacked his own down in answer. The two were silent as they took turns arranging their armies into their starting positions. Bumi's formation ended up sparse and chaotic, giving each piece a great variety of available first moves and making him hard to predict, while his opponent opted instead for an ornate, zig-zag shaped lineup that protected the more powerful, slower pieces behind the weaker, faster ones. The board set up, the man inclined his head, inviting Bumi to make his first move. Bumi did so, and the game was on.

The two men played in silence. Pieces were sacrificed, traded about, reclaimed and defended, and bit-by-bit the miniature battlefield shifted. Minutes passed before the man finally spoke. "Do you know who I am, Bumi?" he asked, claiming another one of Bumi's front line defenders with his white lotus tile.

"You are Rehn, formerly a general in the Omashu Council of Five," Bumi responded quietly, beginning a counterattack of his own. Rehn nodded.

"I am." They continued to play, and Rehn ever so steadily managed to push Bumi's pieces backward. "And?" the former general asked after a time, ignoring the preceding silence.

"You are believed long gone by the Earth Kingdom at large, after having faked your death in a battle against Fire Nation forces at the Kawo Point, some eighteen years ago." Rehn screwed up his face in thought for a moment.

"Close enough." Another silence passed, filled only by the click of tiles against the board. "And do you know," Rehn asked, finally, "_why_ I left the Earth Army?" Bumi looked up to meet the older man's gaze. Rehn's expression was intense – it was clear he was very interested to see what Bumi would say.

"Is it because…" he started, mimicking Rehn's intensity and drawing his words out, "you're a coward?" Rehn frowned and looked back to the board, disappointed.

"Alas, no." He sighed. "You make me sad, Bumi, for that was my favorite of the questions. Ahh well, I cannot honestly say I expected any different." Bumi shrugged and retreated another piece. "Surely you have some questions for me, though," Rehn offered after a few seconds. "I will consent to answer one for you each night."

"What happened?" Bumi grunted, not bothering to make eye contact. Rehn's chair creaked in protest as he leaned back to stroke his short, gray beard.

"Well, you attacked Uijid," he said after sufficient beard stroking. Bumi nodded – he remembered _that_. "You were seriously wounded. The Fire Nation, presumably believing you a valuable prisoner, patched you up as best they could and set to escort you to a more secure position, as Uijid Prison itself was very nearly destroyed in the battle. My companions and I got wind of this and ambushed the caravan with your unconscious body. We managed to steal you away and bring you here. This was five days previous, now."

"And who exactly are 'your companions,' who can steal valuable prisoners from the Fire Nation and live to tell the tale?" Bumi snapped. Rehn looked, if anything, amused.

"It wasn't hard," Rehn insisted. "The firebenders were weary and they gave you up without much protest. I think they must have seen this." He drew a small scroll out of his pocket. "Or perhaps they thought you were on Death's doorstep already, I do not know. But this does not answer your question. We are something of a secret society, a militia, if you will, of volunteers that eclipses national borders." His tone of voice suggested this was supposed to be immensely impressive, and so Bumi spitefully let it pass without comment.

"And what is that?" Bumi gestured to the rolled paper in Rehn's hand.

"I said I'd answer _one_ question every night," he reminded Bumi, "and you've already gotten two," Bumi frowned at the man, hating him more and more. "I suppose, though, considering it's your first night here, I can stretch the rules just a bit." Rehn grinned, apparently enjoying the discomfort he was causing Bumi.

"This," Rehn said, unfolding the scroll, "is a royal announcement regarding your attack on Uijid, straight from the desk of King Ouxi himself. I shall spare you the details, but in short, it condemns you as a renegade who got many brave soldiers needlessly killed and posthumously discharges you from service in the Earth Army." Bumi's eyes widened and the King's last words to him resonated mockingly in his skull.

"They think I'm dead?" he whispered, incredulous. Rehn nodded slowly, pocketing the scroll again.

"Indeed. You're useless as a prisoner now." Bumi was thunderstruck for a moment further, but quickly recovered. He scoffed.

"Those morons," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "As if the Fire Nation could kill me."

"They very nearly did," Rehn reminded him, bending over to move another piece. "But I'm afraid many of your men weren't so lucky." Bumi felt a guilty lump forming in his throat, which he quickly forced away by putting his focus back on the game board.

"What was the damage?"

"I don't have exact numbers – you weren't around to write the final tally," Rehn started, "but it looks like your forces took roughly three in five as casualties or prisoners." Bumi looked away ashamedly, trying to banish the dark thoughts away, but of course his mind spitefully latched itself on the brief conversation he'd had with the boy soldier on the night before the battle. He wondered fleetingly if the boy was one of the survivors. "As soon as you fell, or so I've heard, your captains ordered a retreat." Rehn's voice was dour. For a moment, silence reigned again.

"You did say the prison was destroyed," Bumi offered, sliding the last piece of his plan into position. "Would you say we won?" Rehn sighed in disgust.

"The prison was destroyed and Kuzon's losses were at least as high as yours," he admitted, "but no, I would not say you won. I would say you lost the instant you left Omashu." Rehn pressed his advantage, pushing his white lotus tile right into Bumi's trap. Without hesitation, Bumi grabbed a single piece and, in a series of elaborate jumps, unleashed the plan he'd been working towards since they began, devastating Rehn's army in a single, destructive move. In the blink of an eye, the game was over, and Rehn stared at the board, a slightly dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Well I guess that's a difference between you and me," Bumi said smugly. Rehn forced a humorless grin and nodded.

"I guess so."

"So tell me, _Former General_ Rehn, now that I've kicked your ass in Pai Sho, what say you let me go?" Rehn smirked. "I can't help but point out," Bumi continued, "that our little game could be something of a symbol. A self-professed Pai Sho enthusiast being completely outmaneuvered by a rookie. Hmm…" he pretended to ponder. "It could happen again. Why not just let me back to my work, if I'm not a prisoner? Why keep me?" Rehn sighed.

"Well, _Former General_ Bumi," he began, gathering the game tiles up in his hands, "as I told you already, I feel releasing you now would risk my work and the lives of my associates. Further, as I _also_ told you already, you no longer have work to go back to, even if you were healthy enough to go back to it, which you are not. But finally, I am taking it upon myself to continue your education."

"What does that mean?" Bumi growled.

"It means you're going to learn from me. Two lessons, to be precise." He held up the Pai Sho board. "The game _was_ a symbol, you are correct, as will be the others we shall play before you leave here." He put the board away. "Properly interpreted, the games will tell you the answer to my favorite question from earlier. This will be the first lesson."

"And why should I care why you left the Earth Army?" Bumi demanded.

"I'm getting to that," Rehn countered easily, waggling a finger at the bed-bound man. "Once you understand the first lesson and can answer my favorite question, I think you will understand the second lesson, and I will answer _your_ favorite question." And with that cryptic answer, he got up to leave. He was halfway to the doorframe before Bumi shouted out.

"You the jackass who's been sending me all those letters?" Rehn turned to stare at Bumi.

"You have stretched my rules far enough tonight. That question shall have to wait," he said, but the look on his face said it all.

--

Bumi woke up early. It was still dark when he opened his eyes, and the dizziness had returned, but he forced himself to rise. He sat silently for several minutes, waiting for his stomach to settle and his balance to return. It took longer than he wanted it to, and as much as he hated to admit it, self-doubt gnawed at the back of his mind. A week since his injury and he was still little better off than an invalid. He had no intent, of course, to remain shackled until his crazy wardens saw fit to release him, but they _had_ made a rather good point. He was hurt, and seriously so. As if to reassure himself of this fact, Bumi tried again to lift his left arm to his face, but as before, the pain of the movement sent him reeling. He gritted his teeth and prodded at the wound a little with his chained hand, feeling its dimensions. He was no doctor, but he'd read a few books on field medicine and had had more than enough experience with gravely wounded men, and he was forced to concede that he was lucky to have survived at all. Had any of the arrows struck a little lower, they'd have pierced his heart and he would have perished then and there. He gasped as his fingers met one of the wounds a bit too forcibly. The pain almost knocked him over again, and it took all his willpower not to just curl back up and fall asleep.

He shook his head to focus his thoughts. He had lost, for the time being anyway, the use of his left arm. He was in pain, yes, but that would fade as he healed. More importantly, he had lost a great deal of blood. He was disoriented and exhausted by the slightest movement. He was hurt, he was lucky to be alive, but he was _Bumi._ He would remind the world, yet again, what that meant. He would have to be patient, yes, but it wouldn't do to waste time. He had to prepare. The memory of Rehn's mocking face was all the extra incentive he needed. He _had_ to try.

First things first, he needed to devise a way out of his shackles. Brute strength wasn't going to do it, and he doubted that his captors would be stupid enough to leave the key within reach, so he needed something to pick the lock. Taking a deep breath, Bumi steeled himself, then leaned forward to toss his bedsheets aside, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Tied as he was, there was only one place to look. Ever so slowly, he maneuvered his knees around his body, flipping himself onto his stomach. After catching his breath again, Bumi inched forward, dangling his head over the bed's edge. His long hair brushed the dusty floor panels as he lowered himself just far enough to peer beneath the bed. He strained his vision, willing his eyes to land on a bolt, a piece of wire, even a particularly large splinter, but there was nothing. Bumi hiked himself back up onto the bed and scowled deeply.

Bumi stared about the room, looking for alternatives while he recovered his breath. It seemed that Rehn had covered his proverbial bases – Bumi couldn't see a single suitable pick in the whole room, let alone within his reach. He was about to return to pulling on his chain when his eyes caught site of a scrap of paper, extruding tantalizingly over the edge of Onbri's desk. It sat at the bottom of a pile of charts and documents, some fresh, others yellowed with age. It called to him. It would be useless as a tool, but as _knowledge_, who knew? He would do well to learn what he could, and besides, he could hardly pass up the opportunity to have something, _anything_ over his captors.

Staring hungrily at the paper, Bumi twisted about and placed his feet on the floor. The movement summoned forth another dizzy spell but Bumi ignored it. Very, very cautiously, Bumi slid his weight down onto his knees. He inched across the floor, but only made it a foot or two before he ran out of chain and was left to stretch, arms outspread like a dancer. His shoulder pulsed in protest as he reached and the paper taunted him. His fingers brushed across its edge but he could not reach far enough to grab it. Bumi shifted his weight as far as he could bear, causing the wall to creak. Just a little closer…

A sound came from the next room. Someone was coming. Bumi stared angrily at the door for a second. He could not be spotted; they had to believe everything was out of his reach. He returned his gaze to the paper. It was time to win or lose, he told himself, and Bumi _never_ lost. He gritted his teeth and, with one final burst of effort, bounced forward just enough to topple the page from the desk. It flitted daintily to the floor, almost mockingly. Bumi felt warmth trickle down his skin as his wound split. He bit his tongue to stifle the cry of pain that threatened to break loose, grabbed the fallen paper, launched himself back into the bed, and stuffed the paper under his pillow just as Onbri entered the room, a stack of scrolls in her arms.

"Mornin' On'," he wheezed in greeting, cradling his agonized limb. "How about some breakfast for the non-prisoner? I'm starved." Onbri sighed in frustration and dropped her scrolls on the desk. If she noticed the missing paper, however, she made no indication. "I'd get it myself," Bumi continued, strength returning to his voice, "but my stylish bracelet-that-is-in-no-way-a-set-of-shackles-despite-all-appearances is acting up. It seems to have been affixed to the wall." He gave it a few tugs to demonstrate. Onbri laughed and Bumi smiled.

"They do tend to do that," she admitted as she wove her way back amongst the supply crates.

"You learn something new every day," he said as she returned with another loaf of bread and a small wooden cup. She handed him the bread and left the room, returning moments later with the cup filled with cool water. Bumi took it and drank gratefully. "Thanks," he grunted, already wolfing the bread down. She inclined her head and returned to her desk.

Bumi ate in silence. After his initial pangs of hunger had been sated, he slowed, chewing each bite laboriously as he contemplated his situation. He ached to see what the stolen paper might be, but he couldn't risk reading it in front of Onbri. He'd just have to get back to forming an escape plan. The rhythm of his jaws helped him somewhat, but he was finding it surprisingly hard to concentrate. The realization was an unwelcome one, only made after he spent several minutes trying to latch onto the beginnings of a plan involving levering his body weight to break the shackle from the wall, only to reject it (he'd need a properly sized lever at least as sturdy as the shackle and the means to lift himself atop it, neither of which he had) and return to it seconds later. He frowned deeply as he swallowed the last of his bread and leaned over to knead his forehead with his bound hand. It was bad enough that his body was compromised, but if he couldn't trust his own _mind_ to work properly, he could be in very real trouble. He cussed aloud as he caught his mind returning yet again to the lever plan.

"Damnit!" he grumbled, instinctively slapping himself on the forehead – or, rather, trying to – his arm made it perhaps half the distance before the pain in his shoulder announced its presence. Bumi doubled over, wincing. Once the pain had receded, he risked a glance in Onbri's direction to see if she'd noticed his outburst, but she remained bent over her work, studiously writing out something or another.

Slumping back down in defeat, Bumi sighed loudly. When even _this_ was unable to rouse any reaction from his guardian, he decided to distract himself eating the scattered crumbs from his breakfast, licking his fingers and picking up the miniscule foodstuffs one by one. The paper itched at him from its hiding place. It was going to be a long day.

--

Once again, Onbri didn't leave her work until some time after dinner, leaving the paper burning a hole in Bumi's proverbial pocket for hours. It took all of Bumi's willpower not to reach for it the instant she had closed the door, but he stayed his hand and waited. There was a brief conversation in the next room and the receding sound of footsteps.

Bumi's hand darted under the pillow and retrieved his stolen booty. He sat up and hurriedly flattened it out over his lap. The parchment was covered in orderly lines of text in an unfamiliar hand, with a small, hand-drawn map in one corner. A brief glance, and Bumi recognized it as a reconnaissance report detailing the status of a small region in the south.

_Day 101 – Four immigrants arrived in Modui today. They claim to be displaced farmers but I suspect they are Army deserters. They were fed and put to work. That makes eleven arrivals this week. My partner has not returned from his journey, so earlier reports of the so-called Freedom Fighters are still unconfirmed, but the villagers are decidedly skittish._

_Day 102 – Two more immigrants. The soldiers from yesterday have disappeared. Food supplies are running low. Request what supplies can be spared._

_Day 103 – Earth Army regiment seen to the east. Fifteenth, under General Cilo. The villagers did not approve. I gave the soldiers the false intelligence and they diverted as planned. Perhaps they are investigating the Freedom Fighters as well. Did not have the means to tail them._

The entries were accompanied by dozens of penned notes, lists of supplies, and the like. Bumi frowned at the page. He remembered Modui – It was not far from the pass he'd defended as a colonel. Bumi strained his memory. If Cilo's fifteenth had passed by, the report had to be all of three or four weeks old. Bumi ran his fingers gently over the paper's edge, feeling for the roughness that would indicate the paper had been scraped clean – perhaps the paper had been recycled, and the older message could be deciphered – but there was nothing.

Bumi sighed and leaned back, folding the paper in his hands. It wasn't much information, but it was a start. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more interesting it became. He unfolded and reread it a second and third time. Yes, it _was_ interesting. He'd heard reports from Earth Army scouts that the vigilante groups in the south were reaching their breaking point, but mostly the Army had silently agreed to ignore the problem and give the rabble-rousers a wide berth. The reports _he'd_ always received, though, had never been so detailed as Rehn's. The scout who had written this report was clearly less interested in troop movements than he was in the villagers' lives themselves. Further, he apparently had the means and desire to waylay Earth Kingdom troops in an effort to keep them away. The memory of his mystery pen pal made the bile rise in Bumi's throat. What was Rehn doing that allowed him eyes and ears even in backwoods villages like Modui? He _had_ mentioned his operations with much the same tone of voice Bumi himself had always used to describe his plans. As much as he hated to admit it, Bumi was secretly impressed.

Bumi frowned and returned the paper back to its hiding place beneath his pillow. So Rehn was at the center of a huge intelligence network that made a habit out of manipulating the Earth Army. The game had changed, the enemy was not merely a crazy former general with a grudge to settle. Bumi would adapt. He would learn more.

--

That night, Rehn returned. As before, he lit candles, retrieved the Pai Sho board, and set it up on the short table next to Bumi's bed. As before, Bumi remained quiet throughout the process, accepting his pieces without complaint. The two of them rapidly set up their starting formations and began their game. They were perhaps halfway through when Rehn first spoke.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he contemplated his next move. Bumi grunted noncommittally, and no further words were exchanged for some time. Rehn was noticeably warier after his loss the night before, cautiously considering his every movement and analyzing Bumi's, while Bumi made a point of acting as if his excellence at the game were entirely perfunctory, making each of his turns in mere seconds with no time for strategizing (but of course he'd been coming up with strategies all day, and in fact considered each move extensively, using his uncommonly detailed memory to plot out the game's many possibilities while pretending to gaze, bored, into the wall). Rehn was conservative with his movements, careful about falling into another spectacular trap, but in the end only slipped deeper and deeper into Bumi's elaborate plans.

"So… The letter thing?" Bumi finally asked, doing his best to hide the interest in his voice as he began the offensive that would gut Rehn's forces to the last tile.

"Hmm?" Rehn looked up in surprise, apparently having been so engrossed in the game that he forgot about Bumi entirely. "Oh, yes." He cleared his throat. "Yes, I am the sender." Bumi smirked.

"Damnit. I should have guessed." Rehn's brows raised in curiosity. "I knew the handwriting was familiar. Back when you were still a general, I was a royal scribe," he explained. "I wrote out several of your missives." Rehn smiled genuinely.

"Did you?" he said, noticeably humored, "small world then, I guess." Bumi moved another piece, and Rehn frowned at the board. Realization spread across his face as he recognized what was going on, and Bumi grinned. Rehn shook his head and made a futile counterattack.

"Your letters have been pissing me off for years, Rehn. Why?" Bumi asked. Rehn sighed.

"They were sent with the best of intentions. I wanted to help you," he said, sounding weary, even sad.

"Why?"

"I knew it was the right thing. You remind me of myself, of what I once was. I wish _I_ had had a mysterious ally to send _me_ advice, back when I was in your shoes."

"Ally's a funny word for it," Bumi countered, frowning. "As I recall, a great many of these letters of so-called advice ended up being tricks. Riddles. Deceptions. You tried to lead me around, keep me where you wanted me." Rehn sighed again.

"That's true," he admitted, "but that's not all of it."

"Why didn't you just contact me openly?" Bumi pressed. "Why keep me guessing? Why did my cooperation have to involve me being in the dark?"

"I knew that you would not listen to what I had to say," Rehn responded after a time, leaning away from the board. "Whatever can be said of you, Bumi, you are a stubborn, willful, independent person. Would you honestly have listened to me if I had told you what to do up front?"

"And why not? If what you have to say is rationally sound, then I would listen." Rehn frowned.

"Because we have very different ideas about what is rationally sound, Bumi!" he snapped, stricken with sudden anger. Bumi looked at him wide-eyed, taken aback by his outburst. "I'll be honest with you, Bumi," Rehn continued, "I don't like you."

"Mutual," Bumi muttered.

"You are violent and arrogant and extreme and close-minded and _dangerous_! I am trying to put the world back together, and one of the smartest men I have ever seen is going around burning the countryside! Killing enemy and ally alike! You should be using your talents to _end_ the war, not win it! I had to pull you back, had to control you, put you in a box in whatever way I could, just to keep you from destabilizing things any more than you already have!" The former general's voice grew louder and louder, and Bumi had the feeling he had been waiting to say those words for a long time. "You have… _no_ idea what sort of damage you have done," Rehn continued, clenching his hands together with the desperation of a parent trying to explain something to a disobedient teenager.

"Oh please," Bumi said, waving his manacled hand dismissively once the rant had finally drawn to a close. "I'm the only guy out there that's willing to leave 'The Earth Kingdom Way' in the dust where it belongs. I think the Earth Kingdom needs _more_ people like me, not cowardly thinkers like you, hiding away behind stone walls or inside mountains while the world passes you by!"

"You're right," Rehn said calmly, throwing Bumi off entirely. "You're right, the Earth Kingdom needs more independent thinkers." The absence of the words 'like you' hung loudly in the air. "That is why it is such a shame that one of the few it does have has turned his talents towards wanton destruction."

"I'm fighting!" Bumi shouted. "It's a war, damnit! What do you want me to do, Pai Sho the firebenders to death?" He gestured frantically at the board.

"It's better than what you've _been _doing!"

"Bah," Bumi grunted derisively. "You're just a sympathizer. I do my job and I do it well, and you want to use that to control me. So much for the best of intentions, huh?" Rehn's gaze darkened.

"Whatever distress I've caused you in recent years, you can be assured you've given me tenfold more. Whatever else you want to think of me, know that many times I was _sorely_ tempted to let you dig your own grave, but I didn't!"

"And why not, if you hate me so much?"

"Because…" Rehn paused, clearly wary of his next words. "Because when I listened to the Earth, I knew it was the right thing to do." Bumi was caught off guard by the peculiar answer, and Rehn used the opportunity to depart, leaving the Pai Sho board atop the table.

"Thank you for the game," he muttered as he left.

--

Days passed with little change. Early every morning, Bumi would jolt awake in the midst of some uncomfortable dream or another. He did his best to keep it from unnerving him, telling himself that he needed the time alone anyway. This was a half lie at most, for he did use his mornings wisely. The first chance he had, Bumi had stretched out and returned the stolen paper to Onbri's desk, exchanging it for another, then another. He took to trading documents every chance he got, and every day it became a little easier to make the stretch. He pored over the papers in the dark of night or early morning, always hiding them when Onbri or Rehn were around. They were not comprehensive – most were mundane reports, or maps, or sometimes lists of supplies, but bit-by-bit Bumi pieced together the larger picture, and the picture grew with every page.

The more information he scrounged about Rehn's holdings the fouler his mood became, to have lived so many years, priding himself on his intelligence, and remained so fully unaware of an operation of such magnitude. Rehn had scouts from sea to sea, from the tiniest fishing villages in the north to Whale Tail island and beyond. Scouts in Omashu, Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation, the Southern Landmass. More information had to come from them, Bumi realized, than anyone could ever use, and herein rested the real conundrum. What was Rehn _doing_ with it all, other than leading Earth Kingdom troops about with faulty intelligence? In all the papers Bumi read, he never found reason to believe Rehn was controlling much in the way of personnel, or that he had any sort of force with which to carry out his will. The more he read, the more it seemed that Rehn dealt almost entirely in _information_, not brute force. This realization was more frustrating still, for no matter how he wished to deny it Bumi could recall a time when he prided himself on needing _no_ strength, on beating his foes with mind and mind alone. Had he not disassembled the Consortium from the top down as a sixteen-year-old boy? He did not regret having the strength of a General, for he'd always used his mind to triumph there as well, but he still found himself wondering how his life had changed so much, so quickly.

Onbri would show up in time for breakfast, and Bumi would have to hide his thievery. He was friendly with her around, joking and pretending to be at ease with his confinement. She was friendly enough in return, but rarely spent much effort on him beyond getting him food and changing his bandages, instead working silently at her desk for hours at a time. Bumi found her a confusing opponent – if she was an opponent at all. Mostly he got the impression she was just around to keep him under watch and was not, herself, a threat to him. In fact, he realized she could be a very great benefit to him. Clearly she was doing _something_ for Rehn, so perhaps he could learn from her.

--

"So what's with this Rehn guy?" he asked her one day after a particularly unproductive session of thinking. "Is he always this…" he paused to think of a polite yet adequately condemning word, "umm… _involved_?" Onbri smiled.

"As long as I've known him." She got back to work and Bumi fell silent. Surprisingly, it was Onbri that broke the silence again. "He's pretty _involved_," she admitted, "but don't judge him too harshly. He's a good man. He really only wants what's best for everyone." Bumi scoffed quietly, disguising it amongst a faked bout of coughing when he saw the way her eyes narrowed. He made a show of clearing his throat until she looked away again.

"So what, he's your… Great, great grandfather or something?" he attempted.

"No," she started to explain, but Bumi cut her off.

"Great great _great_ grandfather?"

"No!" she cut in, laughing. "He showed up at our door when I was a little girl." At Bumi's questioning facial expression, she gestured about the room. "This used to be my family's farmhouse. Rehn showed up looking for work one day. The fruits were in season, so my father let him stay to help with the harvest and I guess he just… never left."

"So he's a moocher." Onbri fixed him with her narrow eyed stare again.

"More like a favorite uncle. He and my father became as good as brothers. They were both _involved_ so deeply with this Order stuff," she gestured to the heap of papers on her desk. "When my dad died, he stayed to continue their work and support me and my siblings," she finished, her voice somber.

They were quiet again. "So what exactly did you mean by 'Order stuff'," Bumi asked eventually. "What are you always doing over there while I'm over here slamming my head against the wall-"

"And trying to break that stylish bracelet of yours?" she finished slyly.

"Yeah." Onbri sighed and looked down to the papers on her desk.

"Oh, it's a kind of secret society, I guess. We're an organization with members from all f… well, three nations who are dedicated to promoting the balance. World peace and all that." Bumi got the distinct impression she was withholding details and downplaying the group's significance. She made it sound like they were a couple of idealistic crusaders operating out of a basement, but by this point Bumi refused to believe Rehn had tracked and manipulated him with anything less than a colossal network of informants. Bumi resisted the urge to make a biting comment.

"So what are you in this little Order?" he asked instead. "What are you doing?" Onbri sighed and rested her chin in her palm.

"Normally I'd be out and about, you know? Gathering information, recruiting, and so on. But since I got stuck taking care of _you,_" she stared accusingly at him, "I'm stuck helping them plan this stuff."

"You should let me help. I'm a good planner," Bumi attempted, though it sounded suspicious even to his ears. Onbri stared at him slyly.

"Riiiiight…" she drawled and got back to work. Bumi shrugged.

--

At night, Rehn would arrive and he and Bumi would play Pai Sho. Usually they would talk, but some nights they would set up the board and play the entire game in silence, without exchanging a single word. Day by day, Bumi did his best to lull his captors into a false sense of security, though behind the façade he wracked his mind hour after hour for ways to supplant them.

Still, he remained hopeful. He was at a disadvantage, he admitted, but every day he regained a bit more of his strength, found it a bit easier to think. Rehn was no fool, but he'd not given the least reason to suggest that he'd be any sort of threat at all once Bumi was fully healed. Bumi spent his time preparing for that moment, mentally and physically. He discovered, early one morning as he thieved yet another document from the desk, that his bed could, with a bit of force and the clever application of his weight, be pulled away from the wall. It slid out of the way smoothly enough (only cracking one of its legs), and Bumi got the chance to stand fully erect for the first time in many days. The discovery was an important one, and thereafter Bumi spent every morning in his new space, exercising the best he could with one arm injured and the other chained to the wall. He had to imagine he looked rather ridiculous, flopping about in a lopsided approximation of a push up for many minutes on end, but ultimately it would be worth it to maintain his strength while he healed. He'd work until he saw the first beams of dawn coming through his window, and then push the bed back and pretend to sleep.

Most of all, however, Bumi planned. He would invent scenarios and go through every possible course of action. Could he find some sort of grease and slip out of his cuff in the middle of the night? (Not likely. His manacle was quite tight, and who knew if he could sneak out of the building without being captured?) Perhaps he could break the window, fashion a weapon out of the glass, grab Onbri and threaten to kill her with it unless he was released? (That had potential, but there was something to it that Bumi didn't like). He evaluated and reevaluated dozens of plans.

His favorite plan was special indeed. It occurred to him one day whilst he stared dejectedly at the ring of iron about his wrist that metals, even highly processed metals, were refined earth of some kind or another. It should be true then, he figured, that a sufficiently talented earthbender could harness the impurities in a metal and, with some careful bending, deform the metal itself. His plan was delicious in theory – an entirely novel form of earthbending unique, as far as he knew, to himself – but it had the rather glaring flaw that no matter how tightly he screwed his eyes in concentration and no matter how hard he strained, he could not budge his restraints in the slightest. He tried constantly, sometimes for hours at a time, mentally repeating mantras, mimicking formal earthbending body movements, and generally doing anything he could think of to improve his focus, but the almost tauntingly thin iron cuff refused to move. The heavy chain and plate that anchored the manacle to the wall were no more forgiving. In the end, all Bumi managed to gain from his troubles was a great sense of disappointment, more from the destruction of an idea too beautiful not to exist than for his failure to escape.

Sometimes, rarely, when he grew tired of formulating escape plans, Bumi would let his thoughts wander to what Rehn had told him. The man was, admittedly, an enigma. He _knew_ things, he'd _beaten_ Bumi, and Bumi hated him for it. However much he might dislike the former general, however, Bumi could not help but be captivated by some of the riddles the man had already posed (that he knew this was almost certainly intentional, a ploy to keep him from escaping, made it all the worse). Why _should_ Bumi care about why he left the army? What did that have to do with Bumi? What connection did the question have that made it worth the effort to chain him to the wall until he learned it? And what had Rehn meant by Bumi's favorite question? Bumi considered this last riddle the hardest, but when it came right down to it, he wasn't sure _what_ his favorite question was.

Of course, he reasoned, the entire thing was symbolic in some way. The games they were playing, both on and off the Pai Sho board, were in some way clues to the larger riddle. From them, he was supposed to guess why Rehn had left the army, and in so doing would happen upon the answer to his own favorite question, or at least what Rehn figured his favorite question was. Bumi didn't expect much difficulty – he'd always considered himself quite good at puzzles. When he felt bored enough to dignify Rehn's games with any pondering, however, he found himself surprisingly, infuriatingly incapable. He rolled over the games in his mind – he could remember every move made in every one of them – and yet no great symbol revealed itself. Bumi had won every match, which seemed to him to severely limit anything Rehn had hoped to teach him about life. Still, he pored over every possibility, looking for patterns in everything from the first piece Rehn moved each game, to every third piece, to the color of the square on which Rehn finally lost his final piece. Nothing. A week into his confinement, during their nightly Pai Sho game, Bumi's curiosity finally got the better of him.

"You lost your son in battle," he challenged without preamble. "His death threw the shallowness of war into sharp relief, changing it, in your mind, from a noble effort to a pointless game where you never, _ever_ win." Rehn chuckled quietly.

"Poignant and insulting all at once, as usual, Bumi, but no. My wife and only child died of an illness some years before the war."

"After years of imagining the firebenders as soulless ghouls unfit for compassion," he tried the next night, "you witnessed your own soldiers commit an awful atrocity and, your perspectives on good and evil forever changed, you realized the best thing for it was to leave the world to its own devices while you sat in the dark to play Pai Sho."

"I liked last night's guess better," Rehn admitted. "You continue to dance around the point, but do keep trying."

And so on, and so forth. As the days slipped by, Bumi found an increasingly great portion of his time devoted to winning Rehn's damnable mind games rather than escaping, which frustrated him to no end. Some nights he'd go without sleep, sitting quietly in his bed weighing clues until the wee hours of the morning.

Still, he was well cared for – aside from his growing impatience with his situation, he felt better each day. He had settled into a rhythm of behavior, which was comforting enough.

--

"I'm bored," Bumi announced to the ceiling one day. The ceiling had no opinion, and Bumi glared at it, tracing his eyes across its grain. "Quite bored, in fact," he continued, almost conversationally. "You see, Ceiling, I've been chained to this wall for some time now. Twenty-four days, if my count is correct. But I'm not a prisoner, no no." From across the room, Onbri let out a sigh of annoyance and Bumi was encouraged. "I'm a _guest,_" he continued, "This manacle is a _gift!_ It's _free jewelry!_ Leaving me here day in and day out without anything to do is a _trifle_ after such hospitality!" Bumi fell silent, but again, no response was forthcoming. Bumi frowned and turned to look at Onbri.

"Hey!" he shouted at her. "Didn't you hear me? I said I was bored!"

"Didn't think you were talking to me," Onbri admitted without looking up from her work.

"What, did you think I was talking to the _ceiling!?_ Of course I was talking to you!" Onbri shrugged noncommittally, leaving Bumi to flop down on the bed in exasperation. She was no help. The silence stretched on, and Bumi was about to prod her some more when she spoke.

"Where is Mount Obayak?" she asked offhandedly. Bumi's eyebrows rose.

"Eastern coast, just a few miles west of Batik Bay, why?"

"One of the Seven Brothers, isn't it?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"Yes. Just north of a pair of villages – I can't remember the names." He glanced over at her and noticed her frustrated face. "Let me see," he commanded. To his surprise, she picked up one of the papers on her desk and showed it to him. Bumi recognized it as a map of the Earth Kingdom's eastern coast, with big red and black arrows scrawled all over it.

"Just above your thumb, that big one there," he grunted, rolling back to stare at the ceiling.

"Thanks." Bumi was silent for a while, thinking about the brief glance he'd had of her map. He could picture it perfectly in his mind. Something, however, had been different about it, different about how the arrows had been drawn, almost as if one set of arrows were tailing the other. In a moment, he had it, and sat up again.

"Looks like you're searching for something," he observed. Onbri frowned and quickly set the map back on her desk. Clearly she'd said too much. "Like maybe something that the arrows in red are looking for too," Bumi continued, grinning at her reaction. He looked skyward and closed his eyes as if in deep thought. "I wonder what…" he drawled.

"Listen," Onbri snapped, marching over to him with a handful of papers, "If you're just going to sit there and complain all day, I have work for you." She dumped the papers into his lap. "You can read through those reports and update the map." She thrust a pen into his left hand. "Do it right," she warned severely and marched off.

"Sheesh," Bumi muttered, but was secretly overjoyed. It was nice to get something to do without having to steal it (though he wasn't sure how much better annoying someone into it was). Most pleasing of all, though, was that he'd managed to find a chink in his captors' armor. The next time he felt ornery he'd just have to bring up the search again, make a few speculations, and see what happened. He tucked that thought away for later. On the other hand, they didn't want him to know about whatever they were searching for, which made this clue pretty interesting on its own.

Bumi grinned to himself as he arranged the maps and papers on his bedsheets. They were mostly handwritten reports from scouts throughout the continent, from the Fire Nation-occupied Vaichen in the north all the way to Ojirun on the southern coast. A few of them described troop movements on both sides of the conflict, but most were more about the states of the villages scattered about the world. Some were revolting, others evacuated, many starving, and Bumi's mood decayed with each report he read. The world was in trouble. It made his blood boil, both at the Fire Nation invaders and all the morons on his own side that allowed them to do what they did. Bumi dutifully marked out notes on the map, bringing it up to date with the scouts' findings, but he could not stop his mind from wandering back to his own military life.

If each report he read pushed the knife a bit further into his heart, it was the final one that gave it a twist. Bumi imagined the color draining out of his face as he read it. It was about him.

_The Battle of Uijid_, it read. _General Bumi, all forces, versus General Kuzon, first and third divisions. Total dead 1322, 502 Earth Kingdom, 731 Fire Nation, 89 civilian. Total imprisoned 104 Earth Kingdom, including General Bumi. Uijid prison destroyed._

_General Bumi replaced by Lieutenant General Otu. General Sures' eighth and ninth battalions dispatched south to fortify the region made vulnerable by the loss of Uijid. _

_Total Fire Nation retreat south._

The report went on, describing in detail the destruction wreaked in the wake of Uijid's fall. Civilians had been killed, nearby villages had lost their protection and were quickly overtaken by Fire Nation battalions, and certain trade lines had been compromised. Worse, the report seemed almost as if it had been written for Bumi's eyes, using rhetoric that suggested the investigator who'd penned it was by no means his biggest fan. Bumi stared dumbly at the paper for many seconds before marking the described troop movements on the map and placing it to one side. His head pounded. Rehn's words from before came back to haunt him. What kind of damage _had_ he done?

He was quiet as he finished the work and piled it neatly on the table, and quiet for the rest of the day. He didn't even bother to work on his escape plans or Rehn's crazy games, he just lay still and thought about the world.

--

That night, he and Rehn played Pai Sho, but Bumi's mind was elsewhere. He didn't bother to memorize each move, nor to maintain his act of preternatural ease with the game, and indeed Rehn took full advantage of his sloppiness, claiming tile after tile.

"I feel good about tonight," the older man informed Bumi happily. "You're getting a bit slack, Bumi. Perhaps the self-proclaimed Pai Sho enthusiast will finally beat the rookie?" Bumi shrugged and moved another piece. Had he looked, he might have seen the curious arch in Rehn's brow. "Thinking, Bumi?" he asked. Bumi shrugged again.

"Why didn't you ask me to join your order?" Bumi finally asked. He locked eyes with the former general. Rehn leaned back in his chair and brought a hand to his chin, but did not answer. "You know I would have joined. I'm as apolitical as they come, I would have _loved_ to get away from the stuck up bastards who call themselves my superiors," Bumi continued, slapping a piece down angrily. Rehn sighed.

"I did not think you were qualified," he admitted simply.

"What? Why the hell not?" Bumi demanded, dumfounded.

"It takes more than you have to be one of us, Bumi," Rehn insisted gently.

"Like what?"

"Like empathy." Bumi had no response to that. "We are not about pulling the rug out from beneath authority figures," Rehn continued. "If we were, I would have gone to you first. My companions and I are about _peace_ and _balance_, not about secrecy and deception. It is merely an unfortunate coincidence that we must practice the latter to accomplish the former."

"But I'm really _good_ at secrecy and deception," Bumi tried again. "I'm the Mad Genius, for spirits' sake!"

"Never said you weren't. You are a smart man, Bumi – it would take a fool to claim otherwise – but you are not the _only _smart man."

"Since when?" Bumi muttered, but Rehn ignored him.

"My order requires planning, subterfuge, intelligence, it is true. We _need_ smart men. But we also need men who care. Men who want world peace. Men who want the world to change, to be at balance."

"I want that."

"No you don't," Rehn countered instantly. "You know very well the only reason you were in the army was for the journey, not the destination. You live off of the thrill you get from victory. You live to exercise your skills, to rationalize your place in the world, to seek revenge and excitement. Look how fast you were ready to abandon your old objective to come to mine. It isn't the objective you're after, and it never has been. You simply use it to justify yourself." There was an awkward pause, while Bumi looked blearily into his lap. "You treat yourself like a weapon, and weapons don't care why they kill," Rehn finished.

"So?" Bumi mewled after a moment, feeling the truth in Rehn's words. "What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing at all. I must suspect it makes for a miserable existence, but there is a place for weapons in the world. Just not in my order. There are lots of smart men who do what they do because they are heroes, because they _care_. Why choose a Mad Genius when you can just have a genius?"

They were quiet for the rest of the game. Rehn won, but Bumi was too shaken to care. As usual, Rehn wordlessly packed up the game board and put it away.

"Sleep well, Bumi. I think you are close to understanding," he said as he departed.

--

**EDIT: 08/03/08, Major revisions posted, several sections added.**

A/N: Okay, so, there we go. This chapter was originally going to be way longer, but for a number of reasons I decided to cleave it in two.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that happy with how this one turned out. Can't tell you exactly why, It just seems boring to me, or something. I've no idea how to fix it, though, so it'll just have to do. It is my hope and plan that this chapter and the one following will eventually fit well into the overall story, but for now they're going to be pretty glaring, I imagine. Either way, I am especially interested in peoples' opinion of this chapter and the next, so please review, if you will.

Regarding the Order stuff, I have purposefully kept description of them to a minimum, mostly in the interest of avoiding stepping on the canon's toes. If we never hear more about the Order in the show, then yes, it's them. If we do and it makes my stuff anachronistic, then Rehn's order is something of a predecessor.

The next chapter should be up relatively soon. I'm having some troubles with it, though, so we'll see.

Thanks again to Rasputin Zero for his aid and advice.

And finally… _July!?_ Seriously!?

Next chapter: Bumi and Rehn go on a trip and Bumi finds _yet another_ use for giant mammals! (Seriously)


	20. Interlude

Interlude Interlude

Present day (Bumi age 113), early summer.

--

Bumi sighed and opened his eyes. His heart quickly resumed its steady throp-throp-throp, pushing much-needed blood to his tingling joints. He clenched his fists as hard as he could, trying to knead the sleepy weakness out of them. The fierce crick in his neck (acquired during his brief stint as a toboggan during Aang's most recent visit to Omashu) was only growing worse, due in no small part to weeks of living within the stockade-like headlock of his restraints. Bumi twisted his neck as far as it would go, grimacing at the series of gruesome pops. He was getting too old for this.

Yes, far too old. Bumi had made a livelihood of chasing after the world, but with every year that slipped by his knees creaked just a little louder, he lost just a little more hair, he heard just a little less. And yet he'd given it his all for decades, fighting for every inch of it. And look where he ended up. A century old, and rather than sitting in a rocker where he belonged, surrounded by respectful young people he could send away at any time by claiming to be tired, instead he was up to his neck in a steel box, chained inside of another steel box, and rotting away in the bowels of his own city. The young people who should be listening to him ramble were instead fighting and _dying_. Indeed, the demon girl who'd chased him and Aang down the mail slides couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, and yet she was leading _armies_. It was a sad thing when the mantle of war had to be passed to children so young.

For Bumi, it had taken growing old to understand how important being young was. In truth, he saw a frightening amount of himself in Princess Azula. She was intelligent and talented beyond her years, aggressive and focused. A fine bender, sure, but more importantly, _dangerously_ clever. Had he still lived, Rehn would have had a field day with her, and Bumi was certain she would have fought and tried her hardest to escape, just as he had, not knowing how irritatingly _right_ Rehn had been. There had been times when Bumi would have _killed_ the old man on the spot, had he not been chained to the wall, and yet now he knew what a gift he'd been given.

He'd given up his childhood fighting some war or another. He'd pushed himself further and further away from a normal life, and he was sure, if Rehn hadn't reigned him in, he would have ended up dead. Killed on a battlefield he was really only fighting within himself. One of the grand secrets that growing old had taught him was that inner conflicts weren't nearly as impassable as they were cracked up to be. When a man's argument is with himself, he already knows exactly how it will end, already knows the answer, and strength of character was the ability to admit that answer and act on it. For Bumi, the answer had been acceptance, had been moving on, and it was only Rehn that forced him to admit it.

Still, even after a hundred years, Bumi had never mastered some of Rehn's lessons. No matter how he looked at it and no matter how optimistic, how damnably _forgiving_ of the slowness of the world he forced himself to be, deep down some part of Bumi _was_ a weapon, and always would be. Bumi struggled with Rehn's lessons every day of his life – he was a mad genius, after all, and that made so-called 'spiritual' things (lies and placebo, basically) just a bit harder to swallow. How does one maintain hope in the world when one can see and feel just how fractured it was. Much of the world still believed peace was right around the corner, that all it would take was Ozai's defeat to fix everything back to the way it was. The mad genii of the world knew the truth – there was no going back. The air nomads were lost, and the fact that Aang still lived would not change that, even if he fathered fifty children. The balance, the old way of living would never return. The very Age of Enlightenment that Kuzon had told him about so many years ago would come to pass, for better or worse. New technologies and ideas were surfacing at an unprecedented rate, and their ripples would tear the previously stagnant world to pieces, reorganizing it in their wake. The old world was gone.

How, then, could a man, even a member of the Order of the White Lotus, truly claim to seek balance when he knew the balance was forever gone? The Order had shown up with too little, too late. It, too, was doomed. The national boundaries would fade on their own, and the Order would be obsolete. Bumi had not heard from the Order in a decade, and some part of him wondered if he ever would again.

There was a great clang from outside the darkness, and Bumi lifted his head to watch the great steel door swing open, revealing a firebender guard with a sour expression on his face. In his hand was a bowl of some unidentifiable paste.

"So, crawlin' back to hear some more of-" Bumi started with his well-practiced obnoxiousness.

"Shut up," the firebender immediately grunted. "Meal time." He lifted the bowl up to Bumi's face.

"You sure?" Bumi asked, staring warily at the proffered meal. "You sure you didn't mix it up with bathroom time?"

"Listen, if you don't want it, fine," the firebender growled.

"No no, I'm sure it's delicious. Gotto figure if anybody knows how to fix up a good batch of prison gruel, it would be the firebenders. Spirits know they have enough practice." The firebender's scowl deepened, but he said nothing as he held the bowl to Bumi's lips. Bumi drank deeply, suppressing the urge to shudder as the glop slithered down his throat. It was terribly messy, not to mention undignified, but Bumi bore it all in good humor.

"So," he asked conversationally, "Haven't seen you before. What happened to Khzai, he finally crack?"

"Shut up," the firebender repeated.

"Be nice." The firebender said nothing, and Bumi frowned. His new guard was no fun – hopefully Khzai would return soon, or the rest of his imprisonment might be very dull indeed. Ahh well, there was nothing he could do about it. Bumi mentally shrugged and pursed his lips to drink the rest of the foul-smelling paste. The firebender, apparently in a rush to finish, tipped the bowl higher and higher.

Bumi's eyes widened as he felt a small, hard object fall onto his tongue. Its presence surprised him, and he very nearly swallowed it. He coughed raucously, spattering the guard with flecks of his meal.

There was a commotion outside, and in a flash the captain of the guard (Bumi's personal security had been upped to what looked like a full garrison of troops since Aang had nearly set him free) poked his head into the cell.

"Something wrong?" he demanded. Bumi, blinking away tears, locked eyes with the gruel-speckled guard before him for a moment, and was shocked at what he found there. Instead of the rage he had expected, the man was fixing him with an intense, purposeful stare. A stare that meant something. Bumi tucked the object that had nearly choked him under his tongue, faced the captain, who _was_ staring at him with rage filled eyes, and smiled.

"No no," he said, "just forgot how to eat again. Wrong hole. You know us earthbenders, dumb as the rocks we throw, eh?" The captain scowled at him for a moment more but, apparently satisfied by this answer, turned to go.

"Finish up and get out of there," he grunted to the guard as he left. The guard, the empty gruel bowl still in his hands, inclined his head respectfully. He sent another hard glance Bumi's way and departed, closing the great iron door behind him.

Old or not, Bumi was as sharp as ever, and it didn't take a mad genius to tell he'd been given a message. He frowned as he summoned the object that had nearly choked him from his mouth, holding it up between his pursed lips. The world never missed a chance to prove him wrong (luckily he so rarely was) – almost as soon as his thoughts had turned bitter again, it had sent him a grumpy firebender, just to screw with him.

When, no matter how he strained, he could not wiggle the object high enough between his lips to see it over his cracked nose, Bumi took aim and spat it on the ground before him. He heard it clatter against the floor with a distinctive clack recognized to old men the world over, and craned his neck down to see it. It blinked up at him, its rich red hue noble and strong even beneath a thin layer of saliva, the white lotus at its center curling up as if calling to him. Bumi frowned at it.

"Think I'm wrong, eh?" he asked the tile. "Think old Bumi's gone crazy?" The tile said nothing. "Listen, Tile," Bumi cackled, his voice sing-songy, "I'm a hundred and thirteen years old. A powerful earthbending king. What are you? A lonely, lost little Pai Sho piece, a long way from your gameboard!"

_"But much more,"_ the tile seemed to say in the wise rumble of the former General Iroh of the Fire Nation (or at least what Bumi suspected the wise rumble of the former General Iroh of the Fire Nation would sound like – he knew the man only through word and deed). Bumi stared long and hard at the little object, pondering its meaning. The silence in his cell was absolute.

Some time later (hours), Bumi smiled and let out a chortle, which quickly dissolved into a snorting fit of giggles.

"Fine!" he told the piece, his trademarked insane grin quickly plastering itself across his face. "Fine, I'm wrong! The piece commands, and the king shall go!"

His laughter kept the guards up all night.

--

A/N: A quick little interlude, at ardy1's suggestion.

Note that I have just reuploaded chapter 19, with some major revisions. I was unsatisfied with it before (and, frankly, I still am), but I _do_ think it's much improved. Thanks to ardy1 and Rasputin Zero for their help in that regard. As for whether you actually need to reread it if you read it before, I'd say no, not really. The plot is hardly changed, if at all, merely elaborated upon. On the other hand, it is roughly 4000 words longer than it was, so who knows? If you're a big Bumi fan, it might be a worthwhile reread.

Chapter 20 is done and beta'd. I just need to work through it a bit more and post it. That means it should be up as early as tonight (unlikely) or as late as next week (also unlikely).


	21. XIX: Bumi and the Earth

**Episode XIX: Bumi and the Earth**

82 years ago (Bumi age 31), late fall.

--

"Shhhh… You're going to wake him up." Bumi paused and swiveled, fixing Kuzon with an exasperated stare.

"Honestly Kuzon," he whispered, swirling the jar of ink in his hand like it was an exquisite wine, "how many times have I done this?" The older boy shrugged.

"Just be qui-" he started before Bumi cut him off.

"A lot. A whole lot. I know what I'm doing." He flashed a rather rude hand gesture Kuzon's way and returned to his task. It was late at night – the Trio of Valor had been together for an unprecedented three days of hijinks – and tomorrow Aang and the other monks would be departing to continue their journey northward. Bumi and Kuzon had decided early on that they couldn't allow their friend to leave them _that_ easily, and so, after a few hours of tossing around ideas long after they were supposed to have gone to bed, they'd happened upon the perfect sendoff.

At any given moment, any two of the Trio were probably in secret collaboration against the third, and their pranks grew more elaborate each time they met. Kuzon had more than once had his wardrobe haphazardly converted into ladies' wear (to match his hair, they always explained), and even Bumi had been caught unawares a time or two. Aang, however, was too easy. Ever trusting, he'd merely agreed and complied when Kuzon had suggested he turn in early, what with his hard day of travel the next morning, never questioning why his friends might care how much sleep he got. He hadn't even locked the door to the bedroom he'd been given! Once again, he would pay for his naivety.

It took all of Bumi's self control not to cackle aloud as he crept towards the stark baldness of his sleeping friend's skull. Aang was out cold, his head perfectly positioned. Bumi traded a sly grin with Kuzon and set straight to work, inking his brush and ever so gently applying it to his friend's scalp. His strokes were light and delicate, perfectly controlled and even. Sweat trickled down his brow as he drew.

"Sideburns," Kuzon whispered, barely restraining a fit of giggles. Bumi bit his tongue to hold in his own laughter and agreed, tracing a stark black line down where Aang's sideburns would be, if he had them. Aang shifted in his sleep but did not awaken as Bumi finished and took a few steps back to admire his work.

Bumi and Kuzon beamed, ever so proud of themselves, as they surveyed Aang's brand new head of hair. They snuck away, grinning ear to ear, and managed to get all of three rooms away before collapsing in laughter.

--

Bumi awoke with a shot, his eyes flying open as if he'd been bitten. He glanced at the window. It was still dark out; he'd awoken too early yet again. He groaned and tried to sink back down into his mattress, but of course now he felt wide awake.

Bumi rubbed the bridge of his nose, pressing down on his eyelids and sighing into his palm. He'd regained most of the mobility in his left arm, and every day the pain was less, to the point where even stretching his shoulder as far back as it would go barely ached at all. His cuts and bruises had all healed, his strength was returning (slowly – he'd continued to perform his daily pushups, or at least whatever lopsided approximations he could muster with one arm injured and the other chained to the wall). Indeed, by almost any measure, Bumi was fully healed, and yet the dreams had continued to plague him. He'd always been an insomniac, but he'd always slept deeply. Since his injury, however, he could barely get through a night without his nightmares awakening him at least once.

And nightmares they were. Some were worse than others, but even the very tame were so vivid that Bumi could practically taste his own emotions when he awoke. He'd never considered himself particularly emotional, and yet he'd awaken in crippling depression or at the very heights of elation. The change disturbed and infuriated Bumi. He wasn't _against_ feeling, per se, but he wanted his feelings to reflect what was actually going on in his life, not what was going on decades earlier. The fact that so many of his dreams chose to remind him of Kuzon and Aang before the war made them that much more difficult to bear.

--

Lack of sleep made Bumi even more irritable than usual, and even though some parts of him balked at the unkind things he'd say to the people around him (jailors, he'd remind himself), he was too angry to care. Occasionally those same parts of him would pointedly ask why he was angry, but his angry parts were unreachable.

"There," he grunted, slamming a tile with unnecessary force atop one of Rehn's during their nightly Pai Sho game.

"Bumi, this is Pai Sho, not arm wrestling," Rehn informed him, annoyed. "Brute force does not make my tile any more defeated."

"No," Bumi agreed, slamming another piece down even more forcefully, "but it helps keep me entertained."

"Are you not entertained? We needn't continue if you aren't up for it. I dare say we've played rather a few g-"

"Fifty-eight," Bumi cut him off.

"Hmm… Yes," Rehn agreed. "And I believe the score is currently fifty-seven to one, is it not?" Bumi nodded, fuming. "I thought you enjoyed… what did you call it the other day… 'Breaking a proverbial table leg off in my wrinkled old ass every damned night'." He smiled, but Bumi just glared at him.

"Only so many times before it loses its novelty," he responded slowly.

"You could let me win then, perhaps," Rehn suggested in mock seriousness. There was an audible snap somewhere as Bumi lost it.

"Damn this game!" Bumi shouted, sweeping the table clean with a strike of his arm. Tiles rained against the floor.

"Or you could do that," Rehn observed dryly.

"And damn you!" Bumi roared. "You've got me chained to this damned wall all the damned day, even though you know damn well I'm healed. But nooooo… I've got to solve your _damn_ little puzzle!" He slammed a fist into the table. "You know what, Rehn? I give up. I quit. You win. You play this game different every night," he gestured to the fallen Pai Sho board, "and yet I beat you again and again and _again_. What the hell kind of symbol is that? What does that have to do with anything? You're just screwing with me and you know it!" His chest heaved with rage, but Rehn sat back, unconcerned.

"So tell me," Bumi breathed dangerously, "you mind-screwing, stuck up bastard, why you left the Earth Army."

"I think you miss the point of the riddle, Bumi," Rehn stood up.

"You bastard!" Bumi roared at him as he started to walk away, stepping gingerly over the scattered tiles, "What the hell do I gotto do!?" Rehn ignored him.

Bumi raged and roared long after Rehn was gone. That night, he clenched his shackle as hard as he could for hours, praying to whatever spirit might listen that he could escape. As usual, the spirits were otherwise occupied.

--

As soon as he heard Rehn's approaching footsteps the next night, Bumi turned towards the wall, burying his head petulantly in the corner. He couldn't take it anymore. He'd been attached the wall for next to two months, racking his brain for every trick he could find. He had escaped Fire Nation clutches more times than he could count. He had almost single handedly turned back the invasion in the south. He had shut down an illegal market as a teenager. But no matter how much he thought it through, he'd been unable to escape his confinement in a _farmhouse_. It was just insulting. He couldn't do it. He was beaten. He didn't deserve his title. He would die in this very room.

Rehn cleared his throat, interrupting Bumi's sulking.

"I'm done, Rehn," Bumi grunted without turning around. "I'm not playing anymore."

"Neither am I." The older man's voice was quiet, laced with pity, and some part of Bumi roared its protests at such a dire insult. But there was something else there, something that Bumi took many seconds to identify as regret, and once he did he was compelled to turn and look.

"I have erred," Rehn admitted simply. He was sitting in his usual chair and had pulled up their table, but the Pai Sho board was nowhere to be found (Onbri had put it away in the morning). "I have misunderstood you and wronged you." Bumi's brow furrowed at the man's gall, to only _now _admit to any wrongdoing, but said nothing. Rehn seemed to take his silence as an invitation to continue.

"I believed we were the same, Bumi," he explained, "you and I. And we're similar. We're thinkers. We wake up in the morning and we wonder, we calculate, we weigh options. Our mental lives are rich, we are ruled by what we decide, what appeals to our thoughts. We see farmers working in the shadow of a mountain," Rehn gestured broadly up towards an imaginary mountain, his eyes almost glazed, "and we say 'how, how can you stand by a thing of such beauty and be not moved? Don't you see how insignificant you are to a mountain? Can't you see what greatness lies all around you?' But they say to us 'it is only a rock' and we are left to appreciate its greatness alone." Rehn's voice boomed, and Bumi could not help but feel moved by the image. The man was right, and when Rehn's eyes met his own, Bumi nodded. Rehn smiled, encouraged.

"We're thinkers," he repeated, "but I realize now we're not the same. I think in ideas, you think in objects. I live my life wondering who I am, where I belong, what it all means. You live your life wondering what you can do, where you can go, what will await you there." His face fell. "I did not take you seriously," he admitted, "I tried to treat you as if you were me, and I am sorry. I believed that if I left you alone, gave you the right clues, you would think like I would and learn what I wanted you to learn, but I fear I've only put you through torture."

"You have." Rehn grimaced.

"Well then I shall try to make it up to you. The games are going to stop. We are going to sit and talk and think."

"Frankly," Bumi began, gritting his teeth, "Talking to you is torture in itse-" he stopped in mid sentence as Rehn drew from his pocket a tiny iron key and set it atop the table. Bumi stared at it hungrily. He looked briefly to Rehn, who nodded in silent confirmation.

"I am going to release you," Rehn announced regally. Bumi was struck dumb for a moment. Just like that, he would be free? Not by escaping, but by simply being released? There had to be a catch. Rehn surely had a follow-up plan, surely he'd do something to Bumi as soon as the shackles were off, or if not then then while Bumi made his journey back… Bumi stopped himself as he realized he had no idea where he would go. Omashu, perhaps, but that was irrelevant. He'd never make it anywhere if Rehn decided to sick his so called 'associates' on him. Bumi's eyes narrowed.

"Why?" he asked. "I thought I was _dangerous_."

"Because I trust you not to hurt me, Onbri, or anyone else when I do," Rehn explained with a generous smile. Bumi chuckled darkly.

"And why would you believe that?"

"Because whatever can be said for your conscience, I think you know that we're telling you what you need to hear. We are helping you, can help you further, and somewhere inside of you, you want what we have to offer." Bumi scoffed.

"What have you offered? You've had me chained to the wall for weeks! I just want to get the hell _away_ from you!"

"You regret your time here?"

"YES!"

"And you blame… me?" Rehn asked, his tone patronizing and eyebrows arched curiously.

"Who am I supposed to blame, _myself_?" Bumi asked, rolling his eyes. The awkward silence that followed echoed so loudly in the room that even Bumi felt a bit ashamed. He stole a sheepish glance at Rehn, who stared regally back at him, saying nothing. Bumi sighed.

"Alright," he said, "_Alright_. I made a mistake. If that's what you're after, if you just want to hear the formerly-great General Bumi say those words, then fine. I screwed up. I went after Kuzon without thinking things through. My strategy was wrong, I should…" he gulped, "I should have waited. He would have shown up again at some point. I let my anger get away from me and it cost me a lot." Rehn nodded sagely.

"But _don't!_" Bumi shouted suddenly, extending an accusatory finger so quickly Rehn jumped in his seat, "Tell me that what you've put me through is _my_ fault. I made a mistake and it landed me here, sure, but I was ready to _die_ to take Uijid. We didn't take it, maybe never had a chance, and I'm sorry I wasted my men on a bad call. But I acknowledge my part in what has happened to me. I have to pay for what I did, but I do _not_ deserve the crap you give me! _That_ is on _you_."

Bumi's eyes were wide, his face crimson, and his body language screamed hatred from every pore, but Rehn just smiled.

"Very well," he said, sliding the key within Bumi's reach and rising to his feet. "I am departing early in the morning. I hope you will join me." Bumi watched Rehn stride from the room and shut the door behind him. His gaze flitted down to the tiny key, and he stared at it for some seconds as if it were a venomous snake. Shrugging, he grabbed the key and jabbed it into his manacle. It turned easily, and the iron clasp he'd been fighting with for weeks fell off like chaff.

Bumi stared at his wrist for some seconds, flexing it this way and that and marveling at the way the air felt on his skin. He was really out. He paused to gawk at the closed door in disbelief, then sprung into action.

--

True to his word, Rehn departed the house early the following morning. He'd packed light, nothing more than a meager satchel of food, a pipe, and the clothes on his back. He'd returned to Bumi's room to find it unoccupied, many of the supply crates broken into, several documents stolen, and the window's shattered remains scattered across the floor. The sight had saddened him, and it was with a heavy heart that he hugged Onbri goodbye and began his trip. The former general left the paths behind, descending straight into the forests that sheltered the farmhouse and his headquarters from intruders.

Rehn made it perhaps half an hour and was nestled deep within his own thoughts when suddenly there was a sharp tearing sound and an arrow whistled a half-inch over his head, thudding into a nearby tree. He cried in surprise and fell backwards into a pile of leaf litter, smacking his head into the ground. The old man sputtered and batted the leaves out of his face as he struggled to rise, and found himself staring down the length of another notched arrow. Standing atop a rock ten meters away, a fully armored Bumi glared angrily down at him.

"Goodness, Bumi," Rehn panted, clutching at his heart. He rose to his feet, brushing the dirt from his tunic. "Aren't you a melee soldier?" Bumi leapt down from his perch with a thud.

"I am," he confirmed, walking casually up to his loosed arrow, buried halfway into a tree. "But I've acquired a new respect for archery." He grabbed the arrow shaft and tugged for a moment, but it held fast.

"I can imagine," Rehn replied, laughing. He glanced at Bumi, who was covered from head to toe in stolen goods, armored as if ready for battle, and sporting two large sacks of supplies over his shoulders. "I see you've helped yourself to our stores," Rehn observed. Bumi shrugged.

"I didn't know where we were going, figured I'd better cover my bases."

"So you've decided to join me after all!" Rehn exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "Delightful. So much better than you trying to take my head off with an arrow." He rubbed his head possessively, as if to ensure it was still present. Bumi shrugged again.

"I've got nowhere else to go," he admitted, stowing his bow on his back and staring into the distance. "Where we goin'?" Rehn wiped his muddy hands on his pants and continued his way through the forest. Bumi tagged along behind.

"We are going to a very special spot. I do not know how to teach you what I need to teach you, other than to bring you to those who can." Bumi sighed theatrically.

"That doesn't answer my question," he protested. Rehn smiled.

"It will have to do for now."

--

The two of them traveled in relative silence for some hours, weaving their way through the forest. Though it was difficult to tell beneath the canopy's shade, Bumi guessed that they were traveling northwest. The soil was rocky and sharp canyons overgrown with moss criss-crossed the terrain with impeding frequency. Some were thirty feet deep and twisted on for a great distance in either direction, with jagged, toothy sides that looked liked they'd been carved from the earth with a single, fantastic sweep of a giant's sword. The two men traveled on and on, moving steadily uphill.

Bumi found the travel disconcertingly difficult. He had tried to maintain his strength as best as he could during his confinement, but clearly it had not been enough – many times in his life he'd traveled great distances on foot without trouble, and yet now he found he could barely keep up with his much older companion. Rehn did not help in this regard, maintaining the guru-like serenity that only the truly self-satisfied elderly could pull off. He never broke a sweat and refused to maintain a straight course, weaving his way through trees, walking around canyons instead of across them, and Bumi decided early on that it did no good to follow too closely. However meandering his course, though, Rehn clearly knew where he was going, as if he were being drawn there by scent alone. Occasionally he would stop next to some particularly tall boulder, lean into it with one ear, and tap gently on its surface. He'd listen to the ensuing silence for a moment, nod his understanding, and resume course. Bumi did his best to ignore it.

Still, freedom after so long indoors made even Rehn's company tolerable, and Bumi breathed deeply of the fresh air.

--

That evening, they made camp. Bumi excavated a shallow firepit with a quick stomp of his foot (oh how liberating even this small act of earthbending felt) and set to gathering firewood. By the time darkness descended, he'd put together a humble campfire, which crackled cheerfully in the night.

Clapping his hands with finality, Bumi hefted his hatchet into the dirt next to his pack and flopped down on the ground across from Rehn. His stomach rumbled in protest, and yet he stayed still for some minutes, staring up at the few stars that managed to twinkle their way through the blanketing branches above. Eventually his hunger got the best of him and he returned to his stolen supplies. He withdrew one of the loaves of bread he'd been eating for the past several weeks, impaled it on the end of one of his arrows, and suspended it over the flames.

"Tell me about yourself, Bumi," Rehn said, shattering the silence. Bumi glowered fiercely at him, but Rehn did not seem to notice, and returned to puffing quietly on his pipe.

"Why?" Bumi asked cautiously, returning to his meal. He reeled in his makeshift spit, tore off a piece of blackened bread with his fingers, and popped it into his mouth.

"Just curious, I guess," Rehn admitted. "I know you only by reputation and by your behavior as my guest." Bumi scoffed loudly at the choice of word. "I think a man's actions can say a lot, and your actions are particularly loud, but what goes on in your mind remains a mystery to me. What has made you who you are?" Bumi glared at him.

"Don't think we're friends just because you released me from _your_ prison," he snapped through a mouthful of food. Rehn held up his hands defensively but did not respond, and Bumi paused to stare at the ground.

"Born in Omashu," he grunted after a moment's thought. Rehn nodded. "Parents left me there to be a scribe." Rehn nodded his approval again, but again remained silent. "Ran away when I was a kid, I forget how old. Started living on my own, got involved with all the merchants."

"My father used to take me to Omashu's markets when I was a child," Rehn interrupted. "I used to love to see all the colors, all the funny vendors. So much to buy, more than anyone could ever use," he smiled at the fond remembrance.

"Definitely," Bumi confirmed, grinning as well. "But they'll use it. You know how to put the pieces together, and they'll use it. Bunch of vain, materialistic fools. Can sell them anything if you know how." He laughed.

"And I assume _you_ know how?" Rehn asked skeptically. Bumi looked at him, an expression of mock hurt on his face.

"You wound me, Rehn. I am the very picture of charisma when I want to be." Rehn chuckled.

"Alright. Go on."

"Let's see…" Bumi continued, scratching his scraggly chin. "Ended up making a lot of money with a friend of mine. Got involved in some pretty big stuff. Made a few enemies, got a few enemies arrested." He nodded. "It wasn't a bad life," he admitted, more to himself than to Rehn. "Left when I was nineteen. Decided to travel the world, see what I could see," he lied.

"And you ended up seeing the Southern Landmass," Rehn supplied. Bumi eyed him warily.

"Yes…"

"Yes, one of my fellow Order members from the south mentioned having seen you there." Bumi did not respond. Rehn knew more about him than he felt entirely comfortable with. It was one thing for the Order to have been following his military movements for years – that he understood – but to have been tracking him while he searched for Aang? "What were you doing there, if you don't mind me asking?" Rehn asked. Bumi stared dumbly at him.

"If your informant saw me, then he heard what I was doing," he mumbled. Rehn's eyes narrowed in curiosity.

"He _did_ mention something," he admitted, "but I'd always doubted it myself." Bumi looked away.

"It's true." A yawning silence grew between the two of them.

"We have been looking for him for some time," Rehn said eventually.

"I know," Bumi replied. Indeed, he'd figured it out some time ago. It was the only thing that fit the maps he'd stolen. The Order and the Fire Nation were in a race to find the ultimate prize. Bumi wondered if the Fire Nation knew it had competition.

"Anything you might have found," Rehn began.

"I didn't find anything!" Bumi snapped, cutting off the conversation. He looked away again, taking a big bite out of his bread to hide the lie. Technically, he'd found something very significant. He'd found good evidence that Aang was, in fact, still alive. But where? The Guru had said to the south, and Bumi had looked the entire continent over, with no luck. It had been years since his disappearance. Where could Aang be?

"The Southern Landmass is a beautiful place, or so I've heard," Rehn observed, ignoring Bumi's outburst.

"It is."

"Unfortunately, it is in a bad way these days." Bumi looked up from his meal. "Its peoples are beleaguered, encroached upon further every day," Rehn explained. "The Fire Nation is bringing new force to bear upon them. Hoping, no doubt, to eliminate them as a military factor entirely." Bumi gulped. "They have entreated the Earth King for aid several times, but been ignored time and time again."

"Really?" Rehn nodded sadly. Bumi growled aloud and nearly threw his food into the fire in anger. "Why didn't they tell me?" Bumi demanded to no one in particular.

"Would you have helped them?" Rehn asked, his brow arched curiously.

"Of course I would have!" Bumi shouted. Rehn stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"Why?"

"I have… friends there," Bumi explained, but the look on Rehn's face told him he hadn't said enough. "It just burns me up that the Fire Nation would keep at it like that. It's like attacking children at this point. I mean, we don't deserve it either, but at least we can fight back. It's the nomad massacres all over again." Bumi fell silent, lost in his thoughts while Rehn stroked his beard contemplatively and stared up into the sky as if searching for the right response.

"Of course, after this point I know a very great deal about you," Rehn said eventually, changing the subject again. "You made a name for yourself by being the noisiest, most disrespectful soldier the Army had seen in a long time. You lived through a series of battles and eventually rose to the rank of General, a rank which you used to ferociously, and quite successfully, combat the Fire Nation's advance in the south."

"Yup," Bumi admitted, but offered no more.

"There is one more thing I would ask though, if I may," Rehn said, blatantly ignoring Bumi's attempts to let the conversation die. "What happened between you and Kuzon?" Bumi glared fiercely across the flames and was shocked to find himself blinking away tears

"He betrayed me," he said after a moment. "He betrayed me and killed our friend…" Neither of them attempted to fill the silence that followed.

--

They woke up early and, after a brief argument over breakfast, continued on their journey, Rehn's mood still unflappable, Bumi's still sullen. Bumi himself was, after some weeks of forced vegetarianism, itching for some meat, and kept his bow at the ready as they walked, anxious for the sight of prey. Prey was few and far between, however, and by the time the pair stopped for lunch, Bumi had seen, shot at, and missed only a single gopher-dillo. He sat down to another glum meal of bread and cheese with much frustration, doing his best to ignore Rehn's satisfied grin.

With every step they took, the ground became steeper and the forest receded. Soon the trees had become sparse enough that the afternoon sun could warm their backs, and they were granted the first glimpse of the sheer mountain peaks that extruded majestically from the horizon. Bumi could not help but recall Rehn's words and found himself obliged again to agree with them. The mountain was a mighty, mighty thing, standing far above petty human concerns. It was there, it was seen, if not respected, it was an obstacle that the large and the small had to heed. There was no transience to its existence. It was older than the four nations themselves and would scrape the clouds long after they had gone.

"The Earth is a spectacular thing, is it not, Bumi?" Rehn asked, interrupting Bumi's thoughts. He grinned knowingly at the surprised look on Bumi's face.

"I guess," Bumi admitted, removing his gaze from the mountaintops. He purposefully looked away, trying instead to focus on placing his feet, but he could not shake the feeling that the world was following him. Even staring at the ground, he found himself noticing the trails of ants that he stepped over, found the cheerful war cries of the birds caught in his memory, saw the patterns in the rock strata. He could almost swear he felt the ground rumbling, as if the earth itself was demanding that he look at it, see its greatness. Bumi scowled and kept walking, crunching his feet into the gravelly ground with each step to block out the sounds.

"I have always been in awe of nature," Rehn said again some minutes later, as if purposefully keeping Bumi on the subject. "There is a peace to it that I think is important." Bumi grunted noncommittally and kept walking. "There is," Rehn insisted, undaunted, "And in fact there is much you can learn from it." Bumi scoffed.

"I know there's much you can learn from it," he insisted. "No need to try to sound wiser than you are. Men always try to figure out what makes us so different from animals, and _smart_ men always give up, because we aren't. We _are_ animals, fighting for resources and dominion like all the rest of the world. Even bending comes from animals."

"Hmm… Yes, and no," Rehn said with all the condescension of a schoolteacher. "We are the same and we are different." Bumi waved his hand dismissively.

"Bah. Why, because we believe in magic? Because we kill each other over whose imaginary friend is the best?"

"You're oversimplifying it, but yes, more or less. There is a difference between the man-made and the natural, and many of us ignore it our entire lives. We alone are in a position to consider what the difference may be. The natural is simple, free from artifices. You ignore your natural side when you live your life for money. We must not construct meaning where there is none. But the man-made is thoughtful, capable of looking _beyond_ the natural,"

"Yes, yes. And making up stories about what could be there so that we don't have to shut up and accept our lot in life, so that we don't have to admit how little we know?" Bumi said, cutting him off. "Pardon me, but I don't think animals are missing out on much."

"You're right. We must remain always humble before the Spirits, before the Earth, before things we cannot understand. The Fire Nation is grossly out of bounds to believe our own peoples merely too stupid to believe in Agni, and more so to try to force us to their ways. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the way we feel. Maybe there _is_ magic, Bumi. And ignoring that possibility does little good." Bumi rolled his eyes and the two were silent for some time, with only the sound of their boots against the ground keeping them company. Night began to fall, and a light mist coalesced about the forest floor.

"When you listen to the Earth," Rehn said as if the pause had not happened at all, "it will tell you the right balance."

"Uh huh…" Bumi drawled sarcastically. "Just like it told you to send me junk mail."

"Yes," Rehn admitted simply. Bumi glowered at him and was about to make a sarcastic comment when Rehn stopped. The old man shrugged the satchel from his shoulders. "This is far enough," he concluded aloud, leaving no room for argument. "We will rest here tonight." Bumi frowned.

"Fine," he said, throwing his own pack to the ground. "I'm going hunting."

--

The hunting went well, and Bumi returned with two fine turkey-hawks. Rehn helped dress the meat and the two of them cooked it over the fire until it dripped with grease. They ate it with their bare hands, and even food from the King's table itself, Bumi decided, had never tasted so good.

That night, as Bumi lie on the rocky ground, staring up at the stars, he thought about what Rehn had said. The dirt seemed to cradle him in its embrace, and Bumi drifted to sleep wondering just how old the mountains were.

--

Rehn stopped, once again, to place his ear up against the nearest rock. Bumi sighed impatiently and stood, arms crossed, a few meters away. Secretly, he didn't mind the pause. They'd been mountain climbing in the hot sun all morning, and his muscles ached with exertion. Still, the feeling of soil under one's nails was liberating, and Bumi did not complain.

"We're close," Rehn announced, tapping against the cliff face to which he was listening. He smiled and set off up the path that meandered its way towards the mountain's summit, a new spring in his step.

"Where are we going anyway?" Bumi whined, following behind.

"Have you ever heard the story of Omashu's origins?" Rehn asked by way of answer. Bumi sighed.

"I've heard the _myth_. Cave of Two Lovers and all that."

"Yes, yes. Our destination is not far from there. It is a lovely spot. A spectacular view, plenty of space. The perfect place to think. I discovered it some years ago." Bumi grunted and the two fell silent.

They continued to climb, and the peak grew steeper until Bumi was forced to take off his boots and hang them over his shoulder so he could dig his toes into the rock. Their clothes were soaked with sweat. The air was deathly still, the sun-baked rocks burnt their hands, and progress was slow. Still, they plodded on tirelessly, inching their way towards the peak, Rehn in the lead, Bumi following. Finally, Bumi looked up to see Rehn disappear over the cliff edge.

"We're here!" he announced from above. Bumi cleared the final feet in seconds and rolled himself over the edge. He lay quietly on his stomach for a few seconds, catching his breath, before scrambling to his feet and surveying their destination. It was a small, flat plateau, perhaps a hundred feet across and as much again below the mountain's peak. It was flat and featureless, not counting a scattering of boulders and the steady expanse of orange-red dust covering its every surface. Bumi frowned.

"We came all this way for a patch of dirt?" he asked incredulously. Rehn beamed as he took a seat in the plateau's center.

"Yes, yes. Didn't I tell you?" he asked, ignoring Bumi's sigh of irritation. Bumi tossed his gear into a haphazard pile atop a nearby boulder and walked about the area, kneading the tension out of his forehead. "Here is where I will teach you, Bumi," Rehn continued, his voice slipping already into that of the wise old teacher. "Sit," he commanded, but Bumi ignored him.

"Is there some particular reason why we've traveled all this way, or are you just screwing with me again?"

"You will see," Rehn promised, folding his hands passively in his lap. "Let us begin." Bumi glowered at him for a second, but seeing no reasonable recourse, gave in, flopping down to the ground with a sigh. "We will begin," Rehn started, staring out at the sky, "with my favorite question. Why did I leave the Army? I told you before that you remind me of myself at that age. I was, as you are, a very intense young man. Talented. Dedicated. I was the leader of the Omashu Council of Five by the time I was thirty, and I took my duties very seriously. There was little fighting back then, as I'm sure I needn't remind you – mostly disputes between provinces – but I was unafraid. I would have the perpetrators in chains or worse by the time Roku showed up, every time. I marched into the thickest of it and laid down my King's will. I was the boot on his foot, and any foe of his was a foe of mine. I was well respected. So why did I give it up?" Bumi listened without comment, but could not manage to picture Rehn as a war hero. The man looked altogether too serene, too non-threatening, to have ever been a general. Still, Bumi had read of Rehn's accomplishments, and they were many.

"I left, Bumi, to live my life," Rehn said, answering his own question. "I had nothing left. My family had already died, my wife and child. War was everything to me, and I threw myself into it to give my life meaning. But I came to realize war did just the opposite. Fighting cannot create meaning. The meaning has to come first, has to come from inside you, and it is for _that_ that you fight. I had become a _weapon_, had lost touch with my spirituality. I had lost any value in myself, and so I left to reclaim it." Bumi frowned.

"And this relates to the Pai Sho games how?" he asked grumpily, thoroughly disappointed in the answer to Rehn's riddle. Rehn smiled.

"The Pai Sho games were a symbol in that they were not a symbol. I played them because I wanted to. Because I _like_ Pai Sho. I was not trying to teach you anything tactical, to give you some edge over your enemy. I was encouraging you to value yourself, and others, as _persons_ with value above and beyond what they can accomplish. It is okay just to live. There is a quiet nobility in living one's life, in loving one's country."

"No there isn't!" Bumi protested, shaking his head in exasperation. "_Just living _isn't something to be proud of, it's something to be _ashamed_ of! So you're alive, big deal! We're all alive! Being alive doesn't make you special. Living your life makes you _normal._ Why should you feel good about yourself for doing what everybody does, what you have no choice but to do, while someone else goes out and works for something and achieves it? You don't get to be proud for something you have no control over." He crossed his arms angrily. "You of all people should understand that. People who are satisfied with sitting back and gloating about their nation should be punished for their stupidity."

"And yet people who fight for their nation deserve our praise?" Rehn asked, raising his brows.

"No. People shouldn't fight for their nation at all. They should fight because they choose to, because they decide it is the right thing to do."

"And loving one's nation should not affect this decision?"

"No," Bumi insisted. "Love what your nation does if what it does is worthwhile. Don't love it just because you were born there. Don't love it just because you're supposed to, out of some misguided sort of loyalty _you have no control over._" Rehn nodded.

"You speak wisdom, I think. I believe you are too harsh, and yet you are right to insist against fighting _only_ out of patriotism. But you've missed a piece of it too, and an important one at that. Ultimately, I left the Army because I realized I was fighting for its own sake, because I realized that I had lost sight of what I was defending, but that's not how it began." He looked at Bumi. "What is _your_ favorite question, Bumi?"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Bumi faltered, thinking. Technically, he had put a great deal of thought into this question. What _did_ he want to know, most of all? He tugged at his several-day-old beard for a moment, pondering the possibilities yet again. All the while, Rehn's piercing stare seemed to go right through him.

"I guess," Bumi started with some hesitation. He stopped and frowned again, before making up his mind. "Is the Spirit World a real place?" His voice was clear and even, and the question seemed to echo across the landscape. Rehn's eyes widened in surprise, and the general smiled.

"I'm afraid, Bumi, that you've surprised me again. That is a question that I think no one can answer, though I think many a smart man has thought about it from time to time. In the end, I think we must conclude that we do not know, and leave it at that." Bumi tried to mask his disappointment. "Still," Rehn said again, adjusting his position, "I think the answer I _have_ prepared will be of some interest to you." He fixed Bumi with a narrow-eyed, almost unkind stare.

"Tell me, Bumi," he started, "Why can't you bend?" Bumi scowled.

"Shut up," he insisted.

"Such a smart and talented young man," Rehn continued, paying him no heed. "Good at everything he does. A master swordsman, strategist, thinker, survivalist, salesman, and at roughly everything else he's ever attempted, and yet, by all accounts, a mediocre bender at best." Each word felt like a kick to the stomach, and Bumi looked away, trying to shut them out. "Something is missing," Rehn continued cruelly, "Something that children all around the Earth Kingdom can find, and yet of which the Mad Genius himself has remained entirely oblivious. But what could it be, that it could hide so well from him?" Silence descended upon the mountaintop. Bumi scowled into his knees, mortified. Rehn was right. That _was_ a rather pressing question of his, though he'd trained himself to ignore it.

"And I suppose," he managed after some time, spitting out each word as if it physically pained him, "You know what this thing is?"

"Certainly," Rehn replied. "For I had lost it myself. In the end, you see, I left the Army to live my life. In the beginning, however, I left because I was losing my ability to bend." Bumi looked at him in confusion. "It's true," Rehn continued. "I was considered a prodigy, even at a very young age. I far surpassed my peers, and was considered one of the kingdom's most powerful benders." Bumi grumbled, doing his best to control his jealousy. "But as the years went by, I found my talent slipping. It frightened me. Most benders become only more potent as they age, only more connected to their element, and yet here I was, a man of forty, barely able to make a sandcastle, let alone make the mountains tremble before me. I had lost something, and I quit the Army, indeed, left everything I had behind, to find out what." There was another long pause. "I found it," Rehn concluded, puffing out his chest with pride, "And I can show it to you."

From the look on Rehn's face, Bumi could tell that he was enjoying the drama of the moment. Bumi stared at him in disbelief.

"So let me get this straight," he started, "you've been trying to get me to grow a conscience by bribing me with a _weapon_?"

"No, Bumi, that's just it. Earthbending is _not_ a weapon!"

"Fine, fine. Whatever. It's not a weapon," Bumi drawled sarcastically. "Just because we use it to grind our foes into paste, that doesn't make it a weapon." He adopted an almost mockingly studious posture. "Mentor away."

"Right…" Rehn began slowly. "Like I said, I can teach it to you, but you have to listen to me. The training will be hard. It will take a long time. But most of all, it will require you to make some decisions, to accept some truths," he warned severely. Bumi nodded, still smirking. Rehn cleared his throat and closed his eyes. "Alright. To begin, I would like you to attempt to commune with the Earth." Bumi rolled his eyes again. "It is a special earthbending technique of my own invention," Rehn continued, ignoring him. "It is, in a sense, a trance. You are connecting your own energy to the Earth. You are surrendering to Her. It is the ultimate expression of neutral jing." Rehn's breathing slowed to a stop, and in the space of a few heartbeats he became completely still. Bumi watched him, enrapt, for several minutes, but Rehn never drew the slightest breath. It was as if he'd become a statue.

"Huh," Bumi observed. That didn't look so hard. He'd commune with the Earth alright. He'd commune it so hard it wouldn't know _which_ way to turn. He folded his legs, mimicking Rehn's pose, and closed his eyes. For many seconds he waited expectantly behind the darkness of his own eyelids, but of course nothing happened. It occurred to him that, if in fact it was an earthbending technique, then in some way he had to earthbend, only without applying the force to any earth in particular. He gritted his teeth and pictured himself earthbending, recalled to his mind how it had felt the first time he'd, a scrawny boy of nine, struck down a slab of rock that weighed more than he did. How the feeling of solid stone rippling and cracking under an arm that could barely carry a pillow without tiring had felt so out of place, and yet so absolutely _right_ at the same time. He imagined the looks on his foes faces as the ground rose up to shatter their shins. He tried to picture all of this and yet focus it into his mind.

Nothing. Bumi opened his eyes after several minutes of trying. He was surprised to find himself panting with exertion. Rehn remained, still as a statue, exactly where he first sat down, the same focused expression on his face.

"Alright, I can't do it," Bumi admitted, wiping the sweat from his brow. Rehn had no answer, but continued to stare lifelessly at the horizon. Bumi frowned at him. "Very nice, Rehn. It's a lovely trick. How do you do it?" he tried again. Rehn did not move. Grumbling, Bumi rose to his feet. "Hey!" he shouted, then again, louder. "Rehn!" He waved a hand directly in front of the man's face, but again, there was no response.

"Great," Bumi muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Real cute, Rehn, real cute." He stared off into the distance and was surprised to notice that the view _was_ rather spectacular. He'd ignored it at first, too distracted by his complaining, and yet now he could look down across the continent as if all the world had been placed at his feet. He could see the forest's beginnings, a few scraggly dots congealing into an endless mass of life as it extended southward. Bumi traced the path of the road with his eyes, following it until it went too far to be seen. In the distance, the shininess of the Si Wong Desert was just visible, glittering like a piece of broken glass.

Sighing, Bumi turned back to his silent companion. By all appearances, the man still hadn't moved, or even breathed (Bumi secretly suspected Rehn was cheating every time his back was turned.) Bumi crouched down to Rehn's eye level and poked him experimentally. His skin was stiff and cool. This was no trick.

"Fine, Rehn," he said to no one in particular, and sat back down to try again.

--

The hours trickled by and still Bumi found no success. He'd tried everything he could think of – tiring himself out, coating himself in a fine layer of ruddy dust, holding rocks in his hands – _everything_, and yet the closest he'd gotten to Rehn's trick was a short nap. Rehn, of course, was of no help at all. He continued to stare stony-faced out to the horizon, even as dusk began to fall. His mouth never faltered from its serene grin, which eventually made Bumi so mad that he had to turn his back to it to avoid punching it inwards.

Now he stared out over the mountain's edge, too exasperated to continue. It was rather like his usual battle with insomnia, he supposed – worrying about falling asleep was a sure way to avoid ever doing so. It was only when one became too frustrated with worrying and trying to continue that sleep could come. Bumi felt like that now, and breathed deeply, hoping with some part of his mind that the answer would fall into his lap. He sat for many minutes, watching the sky darken.

"He called it communing with the Earth," he observed to himself after some time, breaking the silence that had enveloped the mountaintop. His voice sounded strange and foreign, as if it were coming from someone else, and Bumi actually twisted around to suspiciously regard Rehn. He still hadn't moved (still smiling) and Bumi turned back, sighing. "Communing with a chunk of rock. Riiiiiight," he continued, hoping Rehn could at least hear the sarcasm in his voice. Still, a thought occurred to him. It was ridiculous, of course, but he _had_ tried everything else, and it might be that Rehn would not awaken from his trance and help until Bumi had jumped through the proper hoop. Bumi rubbed his forehead in frustration and sighed. He would try it. No one was around but Rehn, who'd already seen Bumi as weak as he'd ever been.

"H… Hello?" he asked after some further minutes of silence. His voice echoed from the mountaintop for several suspenseful seconds, and Bumi was surprised to find himself straining his ears for a response. Unsurprisingly, there was none, and Bumi's frown deepened.

"Here I am," Bumi continued, feeling particularly silly, "Communing with the Earth." There was silence. "Well, perhaps the Earth is feeling a bit shy today," he drawled, "So it can just listen while _I_ talk." Again, no response, and Bumi screwed up his brows in thought. What did one say to a planet?

"Lovely… uhh… weather we're having!" he observed. Once again, if the Earth had any opinion, it did not share it. "I was told by a crazy old man that you talk, and somehow that should help me. How about it, hmm?" Still nothing. Bumi placed his hands flat against the ground, feeling for vibrations. Nothing. The silence stretched on.

Bumi snapped. "Come on!" he roared, leaping to his feet. He raised his arms to the sky. "I'm trying! I'm actually _trying_! Give me a break!" His outburst reverberated across the mountain a few times, slowly dissipating back into quietude. Bumi's arms dropped to his sides and he flopped to the ground with a world-weary _whump_. He shook his head angrily. Why was he so _disappointed?_

_"This is stupid," _he thought.

_"Very," _he added after a moment. _"Honestly now. Do I honestly believe Rehn can _talk_ to the Earth?"_

_"Of course not," _he answered his own question. _"The Earth is a rock. It cannot talk."_ He nodded grimly and sat in silence, glowering down at the world until he was interrupted by the impatient rumble of his stomach. Making up his mind, he stood, brushing the dust off of his pants, and retrieved his bow and arrow.

"I'm going hunting, Rehn," he announced, and walked away without a second glance.

--

Bumi stalked mechanically through the darkness, an arrow notched and ready to fly. It would be the full moon in a few days time, and there was plenty of light to hunt by, especially for an earthbender. He felt as much as saw the maze of inky tree trunks and boulders in his path. The world was quiet (there were few insects at this altitude), but Bumi's sensitive feet could feel the patter of dozens of tiny footsteps, as the legions of nocturnal fauna went about their daily lives, oblivious to his presence. His stomach rumbled every so often, and Bumi wished he had not wasted so much time talking to himself before setting out.

His movements were well-rehearsed and perfunctory, and Bumi's mind wandered, leaving his body at the mercy of its considerable experience. As silly as it had been, he found his thoughts returning to the idea of talking to the Earth. It was a ridiculous idea, and yet apparently Rehn took it seriously enough that he actually did what he pretended the Earth told him. The more Bumi thought about it, the more something felt amiss. Rehn had admitted how little he cared for Bumi, and yet he'd gone to enormous trouble to help him. Rehn actually believed that the Earth spoke to him, told him to send all those letters.

_"Of course he doesn't,_" he reprimanded himself, shaking his head. _"Rehn's a jerk but he's no fool. The Earth _doesn't_ talk. He means something else."_ He was momentarily distracted by the sound of trickling water, and in an instant his train of thought was shunted to the back of his mind. Following the noise, he came to a tiny spring leaking forth from a cleft in the rock. He steadied a hand against a nearby boulder, feeling for movement – the water might have attracted game. There was none. His stomach growled and he began to move on. He made it perhaps ten feet before stopping and turning back to regard the spring.

"_Food will come. Wait," _he told himself.

Taking up residence behind a nearby outcropping, Bumi sat down to wait. His stomach continued to voice its hunger, and he brought his thoughts back to occupy himself.

_"It was a symbol,"_ he decided. _"Rehn did not mean it literally. He meant something else."_ But what? What could 'the Earth told me' possibly stand for besides 'I'm a senile old man with delusions of grandeur'?

"_Think about it. What is the Earth?"_

"A rock. An unconscious sphere of stone. No thoughts, no feelings, no why's. Perfectly explainable." But as soon as this thought had announced itself, doubt followed.

"Perfectly?"

"Bending doesn't count," he amended.

"Why not? Can it not be explained?"

"It can, but not by me. I do not know enough."

"It doesn't match the rest of the world."

"It's not magic."

"It's close." And Bumi knew that he was right. He'd always grappled with the war between the natural and supernatural (or rather, the war to take everything away from the supernatural by explaining it). All in all, supernatural explanations were almost invariably cheap superstition when something could not be explained through better means. How many spirits and gods of the past had faded out of their believers' minds when science caught up and rationalized them away? Lightning wasn't magic, it was electricity (exactly what that was, Bumi wasn't fully aware, but he knew it was just a matter of time before Fire Nation thinkers had figured it out). Everything, everything had a natural explanation, it was just a matter of learning enough to find what it was. Bumi had always prided himself in building a worldview that didn't involve any deus ex machinae like spirits, and it had never failed him.

Still, bending had always been on the line. What was it? How could one possibly claim to see the world realistically when the ability to control the elements was commonplace? To be perfectly honest, it had never added up. Gravity should forbid it. Causality should forbid it, and yet it was real. Bumi found himself at a loss.

Even so, Bumi could hardly call himself a realist if he was willing to throw out time-tested, universe-governing rules just because an exception appeared to exist. No indeed, that only called for a re-imagining of the rules. It called for thinking, reevaluation, revision. Bumi was sure that, given enough time, the people of the world would advance enough to be able to explain bending. It wouldn't happen in his lifetime, but it would happen eventually, and that certainty was comforting. Still, the problem was troubling.

"Alright," his mental monologue started again, "Suppose for the sake of argument bending is magic. And while the idea that humans that can't even explain the natural world knowing anything about the supernatural world is ridiculous, suppose further that the legends about bending are true. Where do I go from there?" Bumi mulled it over and found he did not know. On the one hand, his mind was not being entirely cooperative. The idea of magic was so singularly repulsive, it had washed its hands of the whole affair and had focused back on filling his stomach. On the other, there was a certain appeal to the supernatural. At the very least, it would explain why he, genius as he was, had never figured out his bending problems – how was he supposed to know anything supernatural? He found himself rifling through every earthbending story he knew.

The answer was not obvious to him. As it was, legends about earthbending were the simplest, realest of the four elements'. As Gar had been fond of pointing out, there was no God of Rock that gave earthbenders their powers. There was no permission to ask, no taboos to practice, no catches. It was a simple, straightforward ability, just like walking or talking. Badgermoles had it, humans had it. End of story.

Bumi's thoughts were interrupted by the snap of a twig. In an instant, the philosophizing part of his mind finally rejoined hunting part and realization of his surroundings flooded his senses. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he silently craned his neck over the edge of his hiding place, looking down at the spring. Thirty feet away, a male mountain camel had stopped to drink. Even in the dark, Bumi could see the long, tufted ears on its horned head flicking to and fro, wary for danger.

Bumi frowned as he realized that he'd set the arrow he'd prepared aside on a rock. Ever so slowly, he extended a hand out to grab it, his eyes never leaving his quarry. The instant his fingers touched it, the mountain-camel bolted upright, its head swiveling atop its long neck. Its legs twitched with anticipation – it was ready to run, and mountain-camels were faster than the wind. There was no way Bumi could notch an arrow, aim, and fire before the beast had escaped. Cahim might have been able to, but never Bumi.

Whatever could be said of his speed with a bow, Bumi was a terrifically fast thinker. Hardly a moment passed after he realized his predicament had he smashed a fist into the ground, earthbending a pillar up behind the mountain-camel. The creature gave a bleat of fear and fled from the source of the noise, and directly towards the true threat. Bumi felled the creature with a neat shot to the neck.

Even as he hefted the carcass onto his shoulders and began the trek back to the mountaintop, two thoughts occurred to Bumi. The first was "let's see Cahim do that," which brought a conceited smile to his face. The second, however, felt instantly more important.

"Earthbending is a tool."

--

"Earthbending is a tool."

Bumi wasn't sure why this was important. When it came right down to it, it was a dull statement of nothing. Of course earthbending was a tool. So was all bending. So were legs and swords and pens, and he had no trouble with those. Still, the thought had lodged itself in his mind, and he looked at it from every angle all night. It had the distinctive, tip-of-the-tongue flavor of an idea already made but forgotten. It was a start of an answer. Bumi knew it.

It was still in his mind when he finally hefted his prize up onto the ledge where he'd left Rehn. The old general was still there, still gazing unmoving out at the world. It was midnight at least, judging by the stars, but Bumi's stomach had made it clear there would be no waiting until morning, and he dutifully set to work. He left the mountain-camel beneath Rehn's protective gaze and set back down the mountainside to gather wood for a fire, and once he had it burning merrily he set into the carcass, skinning and dressing the meat as he'd learned to do on the Southern Landmass. Bumi had never quite mastered the 'use every part of the yawning seal' mentality, and much of the meat was ruined by his clumsy hands, but before the night was over he had a neat little pile of flame-roasted meat. He ate slowly, still wrapping his mind around this newest puzzle.

The fire had burned down to a last few cheerless embers and the meat gone quite cold before he finally decided to call it a night. Technically, he'd made no progress – earthbending was a tool, but what that meant, he still did not know – but he was satisfied just the same. He was finally on the right track. Rehn stared blankly at him as if to mock him, and Bumi smirked.

"Have some dinner, Rehn," he drawled, piling the leftovers of his meal atop his teacher's head.

He slept well.

--

Bumi was roused from sleep by a peculiar smacking noise. Paying it no heed, he rolled over with a moan, willing his mind back onto the dream thread he'd lost. Of course, he now had no idea about what he'd been dreaming, but he knew it had been fascinating. The noise continued, and as Bumi's senses (quite against his will) sharpened, he recognized too the snap of bone and the slow tear of flesh. A scavenger, no doubt, helping itself to the remains of his kill. Bumi ignored it and bunched up a little tighter, but of course it was no use. He growled, opened his eyes and rolled to his feet.

"Take it and leave, you pesky little…" His jaw stopped mid sentence to hang loosely from his skull. Bumi's eyes widened as he faced the would-be thief and was encountered not by a stoathawk or carriontoad, but instead a vast expanse of fur. He craned his neck back to regard the beast. Spectacled, useless eyes as wide as dinner plates stared curiously back at him. The badgermole, the size of a house and still young, chewed absently on a mouthful of stolen food, which crackled between its sharp teeth. Bumi chuckled at the absurdity of the situation.

"Yeah… You can have that, I guess," he said, bowing his head respectfully to the mammoth beast. The badgermole gave a pleased purr that shook the ground. Bumi yawned, stretching his arms above his head, and stooped to collect his gear, which had been scattered liberally about the plateau. He could feel the great animal's stare on his back as he worked. Luckily, most of the supplies were still salvageable, though the iron pot they'd brought had been stamped flat. Bumi tossed it aside without a care.

When he had collected everything and arranged it in a tidy pile, away from the badgermole and his meal, Bumi regarded the beast again. Blind or not, it seemed to notice and perked up its ears.

"So I guess you're the teacher Rehn mentioned," he asked eventually. The badgermole chuffed happily. "Rehn has some funny friends, but I guess I'm not much one to talk." Bumi smiled, the thudding footsteps of a certain giant ape flooding his memory.

After minutes of chewing, the badgermole finally swallowed the last of the carcass and, once a few seconds of sniffing the ground proved that it was truly gone, shuffled over to the meat Bumi had piled on Rehn's head. It slurped up the offering with a meter-long tongue, lathering it through the old man's thin hair. Bumi snorted with laughter.

"Funny," he admitted (the beast cast another curious stare his way), "but not helpful, Teacher." He took a seat on the ground in front of Rehn, again imitating his posture. "You have fun with that," he continued, closing his eyes, "but I'm going to give this another try."

The seconds passed in silence and, like before, nothing happened. Bumi breathed deeply. He felt better, more serene than he had the day before. Whatever that missing piece was, something told him it was closer, and yet still nothing happened. He breathed deeper still, frowning. Minutes passed, and eventually the shuffling footsteps of a many ton animal receded into the distance.

"Follow him."

Bumi's eyes shot open, darting to Rehn's face. The old man's hair was still drawn up in a comical, saliva-encrusted wave, but aside from that, he was as stony faced as ever. His command, however, echoed in the air. Bumi narrowed his eyes, watching Rehn's face for the slightest movement, but once again, if the old man was cheating, he was doing a damn good job of hiding it. Bumi sighed and rose to his feet.

"I hate you, Rehn."

--

The badgermole wasn't hard to follow. Even on solid rock, its enormous clawed feet tore great swathes everywhere it went. Its massive behind shuffled comically as it made its way across the mountain, Bumi in tow. The creature stepped easily from peak to peak, its weight sending fountains of pulverized rock sliding down the steep slopes. Considering that it was blind, it was surprisingly graceful in its movements, its feet landing perfunctorily on proper footholds (some of which were spaced so far apart Bumi had to leap between them to keep up) or, when it came to a slipperier stretch, summoning them right from the mountain's surface.

Bumi watched silently, tailing his new companion from a safe distance. He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to gather from watching the creature – it was beautiful, aye, and something about the primal strength with which it infused its every move combined with its almost comically affable appearance struck a chord in Bumi – but beyond that, how it was supposed to teach him earthbending, he could not see. Still, he persisted. It was not unbelievable that the only other earthbending species on the planet might hold secrets in its behavior – that was one legend Bumi might actually accept. Besides, it had to be another symbol. The badgermole would not _teach_ him per se, but it was a clue to whatever truth Rehn wanted him to discover.

They'd traveled perhaps half a mile before the badgermole stopped at a great pile of boulders and smashed rock. Its long nose probed the cracks, sniffing insistently. Bumi sniffed too, and was immediately overwhelmed by a powerful, musky smell. He coughed quietly and retracted his nose beneath the collar of his shirt. The badgermole continued to snuffle about, and Bumi soon noticed the fine layer of dust and bone fragments that covered everything. An enormous skeleton, bleached white by the sun and pocked by giant toothmarks, lay in shambles to one side.

After a few minutes of focused sniffing, the badgermole kit seemed to find what it was looking for. Bumi watched as it shuffled backwards, and then with a quick heave rose to its hind legs, stabilizing itself with its thick, pink tail. It took a few tottering steps towards the rock formation (which were, except for the way the ground shook, humorously reminiscent of a toddler's first steps) then dropped down, slamming its massive knuckles down into the ground before it. There was a tremendous crack, loud enough to make Bumi's ears ring, and the mountain split apart. The great pile of boulders drained away like sand in a funnel, revealing a great, gaping hole that disappeared into the blackness of the mountain's innards.

The badgermole held its position for a moment, staring pointedly down what Bumi concluded had to be the entrance to its family's communal burrow, its ears cocked as it listened to the descending rocks clatter. Bumi's guts still shuddered from the force of the blow, which on another day he might have dismissed as brute animal strength. There was a surprising sense of purpose to the badgermole's stance, however, something about the way that its claws folded over its palms and its muscles bulged beneath its fur convinced Bumi that he was seeing more than just an accidental pose. He flexed his own arms, mimicking the way the badgermole had moved, and stooped to gently bump his knuckles against the ground. Nearby pebbles danced, and Bumi arched an eyebrow in surprise. He did not have time to try the move again, however, as the badgermole finally trundled its way into the mountain's maw. Bumi followed, knowing his lesson was not yet complete.

--

There is only so long a man can go without food, water, or sunlight (though Bumi's understanding of exactly how long that is would soon be radically changed). When a truly thoughtful man truly sits down to think, however, and especially if he chooses to do it deep beneath the Earth's surface, without the sun, moon, or stars with which to gauge the passage of time, that limit can creep up in a hurry. Bumi did not know how long he stayed in the company of the badgermoles (three kits and their irritable, battleship sized mother) – it could have been three days, it could have been ten – but it was only when his need for sustenance became too much to bear that he finally left. Lost in his thoughts, he'd put off his departure as long as possible, licking the dampness off of rocks to tide over his desiccated mouth. His attempts to scavenge from the badgermoles' kills did _not_ go over well, and in the end, he was forced to return to the surface or risk starvation.

After so long underground, the sunlight was dazzling, and gut-wrenching hunger and thirst aside, Bumi was forced to wait in the dimness thirty feet into the badgermoles' tunnel until his eyes remembered how to see again. His head swam and his limbs tingled distractedly as he made his drunken journey. Several times he nearly swerved off a cliffside, and for much of the way he was too dizzy to do any better than crawl, but eventually he made his way back to where he'd left the still-statuesque Rehn.

His hands shook as he went for his backpack and fumbled ineffectively with the straps for a moment before managing to open it and withdraw a bladder of water. This he frantically emptied into his mouth, greedily swallowing every drop. When he'd squeezed it dry and then some, he tossed it aside and reached for another. The coolness of the liquid sloshing down his throat made his shrunken stomach burble with surprised discomfort, but he ignored this too as he moved on to the half dozen wrapped loaves of bread he'd stolen from Rehn's farmhouse. He devoured all six like a man possessed, tearing them open one by one and ravaging them. By the time he'd finished, there was a heavy knot of pain in his side, as if he'd swallowed a great stone, but even then he'd have eaten more had there been any more to be eaten.

The camp drained of food, Bumi collapsed onto his back and stared up at the swirling sky, gritting his teeth against the stomach pains. The pain came in waves of increasing severity punctuated by brief breaks – during one of these, Bumi twisted his head far enough to see Rehn, still apparently unmoved and unconcerned by the passage of time. Bumi grimaced at the man as another wave broke. However, even doubled over in pain, he was charged with excitement. He'd spent his time wisely over the past few days. He'd almost starved, it was true, but there was something about blinding the eyes (and, perhaps, the soothing aroma of a bevy of gigantic mustelids) that cleared the mind. He'd sat in the dark and pondered for many hours on end, piecing together Rehn's clues, and he knew he was close. He'd felt his ability to read vibrations grow throughout his time in the cave (until he could feel all four badgermoles, no matter where in their labyrinth they may be), and while he figured it could merely be his ears growing more attuned after so long in the dark, he had a feeling it was not. He had a feeling he had almost found what he'd been missing.

The pain did not subside, nor did the ravenous hunger, but soon Bumi's patience wore out. He teetered to his feet and attempted to walk over to where Rehn sat, but before he'd made it three steps he felt his furious meal coming back to revisit him. He stumbled to the edge of the peak and threw up over the rocks below.

He lay on his stomach, peering down the slope for some time. He'd clearly eaten too much, too fast for his atrophied stomach to handle. His abdomen still spasmed uncomfortably, and yet the primal urge to _eat_ something would not go away. He had to go hunting, had to find something.

_"No. I drank. I am not in danger anymore. Food can wait."_ He did not particularly _want_ to make food wait, but he realized he was right. He could hardly hunt in his condition anyway. He steeled himself and rose again. This time he managed to stumble over to Rehn and, once again, mimic the older man's meditative posture.

"I think I have it, Rehn," he announced. His voice sounded sticky and foreign to his ears, but the words were clear enough, and he watched Rehn's face intently. For a time, Rehn did not move, and Bumi was struck with the awful thought that his mentor's game was just beginning. After a moment, however, Rehn's lips moved.

"Do you?" he asked, his voice gravelly. Bumi started abruptly – it was surprising how strange seeing any movement from Rehn was – it was like he really _had_ become a rock.

"Y…Yes," Bumi managed, finding his voice. "I think so, anyway." He looked at Rehn, who might have inclined his head the slightest bit. "Okay," Bumi started, "So I followed the badgermoles and watched them. They are just animals, and yet they may be the greatest earthbenders in the world. Why? Because they're different from humans. They don't think in terms of plans and controls. They use earthbending to live their lives, and that's all. They're powerful, but they don't view the power as an end in itself but always as a means." Bumi was panting as he finished, and looked at Rehn hopefully. There was an impossibly long moment, and then Rehn smiled.

"Good enough," he croaked, and Bumi couldn't help but grin. He started to talk, but Rehn cut him off. "Close your eyes," he commanded, "And try to commune with the Earth again." Bumi did so. He heard a creaking sound as, no doubt, Rehn stood up from his long sit. Rehn began to talk, and as he did so, his voice reclaimed its previous warmth.

"I told you the answer to my favorite question is the same as the answer to your favorite question, and so it is," he began. "You are correct. Badgermoles are pure earthbenders, simple, honest creatures, commanding a simple, honest element. Earth is not like fire, not like water, not like air. They are all companions, all have their own will, all act with or without the bender's aid. Earth is the least spiritual, the most animalistic of the four, and yet we humans still manage to dilute its true purpose."

"Earthbending is a tool," Rehn growled, echoing Bumi's realization from earlier. "It is not a master, a slave, or a friend, but a tool. Badgermoles use it to build their homes and defend themselves, to live their lives. Remember what I told you about my last years in the Army? I had come to worship the fight itself, and not the life it was meant to protect. I had come to worship earthbending's power, without caring about what it was for. I had become a weapon, when I needed to be a _hero._" Bumi winced. When several seconds passed and Rehn did not continue, he spoke up.

"The secret to earthbending is to be a _hero?_" He asked, not managing to hide the doubt in his voice. "I'm pretty sure I could introduce you to quite a few talented earthbenders that fall just a pinch short of the 'hero mark'." Rehn chuckled.

"I'm sure you could, Bumi, I'm sure you could. But they will serve as a fine example. Are these friends of yours _evil?_" he asked. Bumi frowned, thinking. "Does the Earth dole out its powers to only those who it deems good, and keeps them from those it deems evil?" There was another pause. "Of course not. Earth is not a judgmental element. It is not a master, slave, or friend, but only a tool. Earth cannot measure a man's acts."

"No, the truth is, earthbending is connected to a _desire_ to live one's life, to improve things, to be a hero. Your evil friends do not wake up in the morning and think themselves evil. They think they are revolutionaries, pushing for a better way of life against a misguided world morality. _Every_ man thinks he's a hero, Bumi…" There was a long, pregnant pause. "Except _you._" Bumi accidentally opened his eyes at that, and saw Rehn staring at him with scholarly interest.

"_Every_ man thinks he's a hero," Rehn repeated as Bumi closed his eyes again, "_Every _man looks for a better life, _Every_ man seeks to fix the world… Except for Bumi. Bumi's always doing things, always heading for a goal, but what does he really _want?"_ Bumi considered this, and was surprised to find that he did not know. Luckily, Rehn did not appear to be looking for an answer, and continued, his voice growing louder and more involved. "Bumi goes from place to place, always improving himself, always trying to be the best, always the winner, the master. He is the quintessential weapon. Joined the Army for all the wrong reasons, just a piece of equipment to be wielded." Bumi felt Rehn kneel down in front of him, felt rather than saw the chastising finger the old man pointed his way. "_Earthbending_ is a tool, Bumi, but _you_ are not." Utter silence followed, and Bumi felt his eyes grow wet. He did not bother to wipe them.

"So what you need to do, my friend," Rehn continued after a moment in a soft, soothing tone of voice, "Is take some time. Think about what you want your life to mean before it is over. Think about what is important to you. _Live your life._ And if you do, you will be able to speak to the Earth."

Bumi sniffled. "The Earth will talk to me?"

"The Earth is a rock, Bumi," Rehn said, and Bumi could hear the grin in his voice. "When you commune with it, the only one talking is _you._" And with that, he walked away.

--

Bumi's stomach roared its protests, demanding and rejecting food in the same insistent voice, but Bumi ignored it. His eyes were shut, his knees crossed in a meditative pose, the very picture of serenity, but his mind raced. The Earth didn't talk, it _was_ a symbol, and Bumi was surprised he hadn't thought of it before. Another old, wise man had told him much the same thing, many years ago. _"__There are many incarnations of the spirit world, and they mean different things to different people,"_ Pathik had said,_ "Many people seek to know the truth, but that is a thing that no one can say, so each person invents his own."_ And there it was. Communing with the 'Earth' was just a fancier way to picture self-evaluation. When a man looked inside himself, realized his principles, and made a decision, he wanted to give the credit to something bigger than himself, and so it became communing with the Earth.

_"Okay, so let's do it, Self," _Bumi told himself.

_"Think about what you want your life to mean before it is over,"_ Rehn's voice echoed in his head, and Bumi's mind returned to the boy soldier he'd talked to before his fateful battle at Uijid, the one who had wanted to go on living his life.

_"What do you want?"_ he asked himself, and his mind was back on the Southern Landmass, traveling the hard-packed tundra underneath a star-studded sky, friends at his side.

_"Think about what is important to you," _Rehn's voice commanded, and his mind reeled back still further, this time to Mipsie, and Kee, and Shou, and Kihni. Further back, and the memories grew more intense. The colors popped, the textures rubbed at his skin. Further back, and he was with Kuzon and Aang again, laughing. Happy.

And when he opened his eyes, Bumi gasped.

--

There he was, atop the same peak on which Rehn had spent so many days without moving, and yet something seemed… _off._ Some part of the picture was wrong to him, but as soon as Bumi tried to decide what it was, his mind would muddy and he would find himself skipping through extraordinarily vivid memories again. His train of thought refused to be locked down, and eventually Bumi gave up and watched the sun trace an arc across the sky. It was beautiful, he decided. His thoughts, though scattered, were powerful – each one thundered across his brain with perfect clarity. More, he felt an unbelievable sense of calm of safety. The feeling enveloping him had an astonishing width to it that stretched out beneath him like a safety net (if he had measured it, Bumi was sure it would be as wide as the planet itself). It tingled like a phantom limb, but vast and unchangeable and immortal.

_"Okay. Everything is okay,_" the Earth's voice (his own) spoke to him. _"You are at peace, I am at peace, you have done well."_ He calmed and let his mind wander as it would. His eyes watched the sky, watched the alternating periods of light and dark as the sun and moon took turns rolling past. He followed their paths, grinning stupidly to himself. Eventually, even this lost its novelty, and he stared up at the mountain peak that extruded up above him. It was perhaps a hundred feet tall in reality (though Bumi could not recall that figure now), but it looked impossibly bigger, the thumb of a vast hand, the head of a vast woman (Oma?), holding Bumi in her arms.

"Do it." Rehn's voice cut through the murk. There was something _realer_, more gritty about it that made it grate on Bumi's ears and reverberate through his bones. Somehow, Bumi didn't need to be told what _it_ was, and raised his hands high in the air. He brought his knuckles down on the ground.

--

The mountaintop tore itself in two with a spectacular crack. Vast boulders rained down in a thunderous hail, as if the spirits themselves had seen fit to show their power. The two halves, each many times the size of a house, slumped to either side, leaving a colossal fissure between them.

--

The first thing Bumi noticed when he came to was the split mountain before him, the great gulf in the rock, wide enough for a sky bison to fly through, that had not been there just minutes before. His eyes widened as he realized that it was _he_ that had done that, _he _that had shown such strength.

The second thing he noticed was a small, neat pile of fruit and nuts, along with a loaf of bread, resting on the ground in front of him. His stomach reminded itself of its presence and his awe at his newfound power stepped aside. He greedily set into the food.

"I _thought_ you'd be rather hungry after all that," Rehn observed, and Bumi turned to see the older man sitting on a summoned pedestal of rock, calmly sipping tea from a porcelain teacup. At Bumi's confused gawking, he gestured to it. "I've already been back to my house to pick up a few things," he explained. "Got some work done, brought us some fresh supplies." Bumi forced down a particularly dry lump of bread.

"Really?" he asked. "How long was I out?" Rehn smiled.

"Six days." Bumi's eyes widened even further, and he gradually turned back to look at the cloven mountain.

"Wow…"

--

They started the journey back to Rehn's house that afternoon. Bumi's joints creaked and squealed when he stood up for the first time, leaving a lingering pain in his fingers and hips, and Rehn had just laughed.

"You'll get used to it," he promised, shaking his head.

They took their time, stopping early each day to build up a campfire and prepare a fine meal. Bumi's tone was significantly improved since their last journey, and he asked Rehn many questions about earthbending (and even answered a few about himself). Soon, however, they spotted a thin, cheerful wisp of chimney smoke curling into the sky. Their mood grew solemn, and as they approached the house where Bumi had been imprisoned (Bumi could not help but squirm a little at the sight), Rehn put a hand on Bumi's shoulder.

"Listen, Bumi," he commanded, and his face was serious enough that Bumi complied without hesitation. "You have done well, and I am very proud of you. You would be welcome to stay here, with me, for as long as you would like, but I think I know you well enough by now to know that you'll be moving on tomorrow." Bumi nodded. He would be. "I have, on this paper," he withdrew a folded piece of parchment from his pocket and caressed it nervously between his calloused hands, "the locations, as of three days ago, of your former unit, as well as General Kuzon." He handed the paper to Bumi, whose eyes widened in surprise. He patted Bumi's shoulder again. "I cannot tell you how to be a hero, Bumi. I've taught you all I can." He turned and walked down the path towards his house without another word.

--

Bumi spent the night in the very same bed he'd been chained in for weeks, thinking.

--

Bumi awoke the next morning to the smell of cooking sausage. His stomach growled, and, after shouldering his backpack, he followed his nose out to the front yard. Onbri and Rehn were seated around a firepit, talking as breakfast sizzled between them.

"Mornin' On', Rehn," Bumi grunted, squatting on one of the stone seats.

"Mornin' Bumi," Onbri replied, smiling prettily. "Did you survive Rehn?" Bumi laughed.

"Kicked 'is ass, is more like it." Rehn rolled his eyes and handed Bumi a plate. The three of them ate in silence. The food was good, but there was a tension in the air, and Bumi could tell his companions were anxious to hear what he was planning to do. Would he reveal their Order? What would he do with Rehn's teachings? It was Rehn himself who broke the silence.

"So," he started, clearing his throat. "I suppose you'll be leaving this morning?" He and Onbri stared at Bumi expectantly, watching him swallow a last bite of sausage.

"Yes. I am heading south." He produced from his pocket the note Rehn had given him the previous evening, and, after a grave pause, tossed it in the fire. He tried to do it nonchalantly, as if he didn't care at all, but he couldn't help but solemnly watch as the edges curled and blackened away. Some part of him longed to plunge his hands into the flames, to rescue his chance at revenge, and yet the feeling faded. Seconds passed, and he knew it was over. A great weight had lifted from his shoulders. He was done with Kuzon.

"How far south?" Rehn asked. Bumi grinned.

"Pretty far." Rehn nodded his acceptance and stroked at his bearded chin. He appeared on the verge of saying something further, but minutes passed and he said nothing. Bumi slowly poked at his last bite of food as long as he could bear, but when Rehn remained silent, he wolfed it down, set his plate aside, and stood.

"I guess this is goodbye," he told them, fumbling about inside of one of his pockets. "And thanks, I guess." Finding the object he sought, he palmed it in one of his hands. Bumi stared at Onbri, who nodded, and at Rehn, who did nothing. He held his gaze, then began to turn away.

"If you go south," Rehn's voice broke out, stopping him, "Your friends will still believe you dead." He said it matter-of-factly, not a warning, just a reminder. He stared warily at Bumi from behind steepled fingers. Bumi matched his gaze.

"I think I'd like them to believe that for a little longer yet," he admitted.

"You sure?" There was a long pause as Bumi outstretched one hand, held on for a moment, and then dropped something heavy into the fire to join Rehn's letter. Rehn's eyes darted down and rested briefly on the mangled remains of a manacle, then flitted up to meet his student's eyes again. The ghost of a smile appeared on his lips.

"I'm sure." And Bumi headed south.

--

A/N: Hey there, long time no see!

I've learned my lesson. No more promises about update schedules. None. That is all.

Well, first of all, sorry to my readers for taking so long. Life (in the form of my new job) and, more importantly, a general lack of interest took over. Since watching the ever-so-epic finale, however, some of that interest has been rekindled, and I decided that, considering I had some 10,000+ words sitting on my hard drive I'd not yet posted, I might as well get back to it.

I'll be honest, with the presumed end (or something like it) of Avatar upon us, I am beginning to doubt my ability to remain motivated enough to finish this story. I still have a good 6-8 chapters planned after this one, and at the rate I'm going, I wonder if they'll ever get done. Worry not, I am not quitting this story. At present, I am still enjoying it (in fact, after so many months away from it it was kindof a treat to go back and read what I'd forgotten). I am far too heavily invested to quit now. Still, a heads up. (If I do happen to quit, I'll be sure to write something of an abridged version of the ending, perhaps a series of oneshotish chapters, so at least the story can have some closure).

Anywho, this is the second of two chapters that have worried me since I started this story, and I think it turned out rather better than the first. Longest one yet (I really don't know why that keeps happening), and kindof philosophical to boot (I wrote much of this while taking a very interesting class on morality – we didn't cover the arguments mentioned here, but nonetheless an inspiration). That last bit there might anger some Toph fans, but I thought it was too cool an image to resist.

Once again I must thank my beta, Rasputin Zero, for his help in editing, and shepherd my few readers over towards his excellent epic (which I note also hasn't been updated in a while…glares)

Next chapter: Dual identities abound and Bumi's talents, new and old, are put to good use. Also, canon rears its head again!


End file.
